Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.
She made me decide what I'd take if we had to go. She said if I was brave, I wouldn't take anything.
What could one do with someone like Justine? If she announced she was going off to train as a whore in a Sydney bordello, Meggie very much doubted whether she could be turned aside. Dear, horrible Justine, queen among juggernauts.
You can always tell what kind of a person a man really thinks you are by the earrings he gives you.
Don't forget who you are. The best part of me is well-hidden and you have to do the same. Remember it all, every insult, every tear.
While learning the business, undergoing the long days of tutelage by his father, Michael had one time asked, ‘How come you used a guy like Luca Brasi? An animal like that?'
The Don had proceeded to instruct him. ‘There arc men in this world/ he said, ‘who go about demanding to be killed. You must have noticed them. They quarrel in gambling games, they jump out of their automobiles in a rage if someone so much as scratches their fender, they humiliate and bully people whose capabilities they do not know. I have seen a man, a fool, deliberately infuriate a group of dangerous men, and he him-self without any resources. These are people who wander through the world shouting, “Kill me. Kill me. " And there is always somebody ready to oblige them. We read about it in the newspapers every day. Such people of course do a great deal of harm to others also.
‘Luca Brasi was such a man. But he was such an extra-ordinary man that for a long time nobody could kill him. Most of these people are of no concern to ourselves but a Brasi is a powerful weapon to be used. The trick is that since he does not fear death and indeed looks for it, then the trick is to make yourself the only person in the world that he truly desires w/ to loll him. He has only that one fear, not of death, but that jou may be the one to kill him. He is yours then.'
People don't hide strengths, they guard their weaknesses.
It was like a puppy. Love me, love me, love me. I did.
Smart men play close to the line because they have to—some of them can’t stand it, so they quit.
I shouldn't have called them characters to start with. They're individualists. They've grown up in a free and easy atmosphere. They've not been forced to conform to a group of rigid concepts and so they've been themselves. Perhaps the only truly unfettered human beings who still exist today can be found in little villages like this.