Mafia Culture Quotes

In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.

I'm a gangster, and gangsters don't ask questions.

'Our thing' is turning into 'my thing' within the Mafia, just as the larger American society is facing the new realities of the 'me generation.'

When we were doing 'The Sopranos', I used to love that about it. There were rules, Mafia codes you had to go by, but the code is ridiculous. It's a code among sociopaths.

The warlords took part in atrocities during the civil war in Afghanistan. They looted, they raped, they killed. They have become incredibly empowered and entrenched. They live in mansions, they have jobs in the government, and they're incredibly powerful. In Kabul, people don't want to speak about it too publicly, because these people are essentially like Tony Soprano.

If you think about the traditional mafia stories we grew up on, it is always about the death of criminal organisations - things like the 'Sopranos' - the last vestiges of once proud families subsumed by the modern era.

'The Godfather' is a great movie, but it gives them too much credit. What you don't see is what really takes place: the in-fighting, the lying to each other, the scheming against each other to get power.

I took a straight picture that made me look like a thirty-year-old Italian who'd kill anybody who said something against his mother.

I discovered that the world of the finest restaurants was something akin to the world of the Mafia.

Friends are important, dontcha think? Hmmm? I think so. The way I see it, you got friends, and you got your best friend, big difference. To me, a friend's a guy who will help you move. A best friend's a guy who will help you move a body. That's how I look at it.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.

Basically, the last 30 minutes of 'Goodfellas,' that was my neighborhood... literally. There were people on my street who did nothing but just wash their car all day and wait for a package, and that's what I thought being an adult was.

What do you mean "gangsters"? It's business.

The way it works in our family is, it's the family business. Much like in the Mafia. Every child is given the opportunity to act at a young age and to learn what it's like to be in the business. But I didn't really know I wanted to act when I was a child.

Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera.

To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States.

I think we're fascinated by gangsters and that whole lifestyle and crossing the line. We get sort of stuck in our normal lives, if you will, and you want to be bigger than life and I think people somehow live through these sorts of characters.

Even the evil-looking bird perched on a rod in the bar had stopped screeching out the names and addresses of local contract killers, which was a service it provided for free.

When you get made into the Mafia, they cut, prick your finger. And they take the blood and put it on the picture of a saint. Then they burn it. That's the Mafia induction ceremony.

I imagine that in a closed, hermetic society like the mob, where everybody knows each other, it must be really, really unpleasant to have to kill people. It's the sort of thing you really want to avoid.

I always tell everyone wrestling is like the mafia, once you get in, you can't get out.