When a Guy Says I'll Let You Know

Goodfellas is a 1990 moving picture well-nigh the rise and fall of three gangsters, spanning three decades.

Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese, based on Pileggi's book, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family.

Three Decades of Life in the Mafia.taglines

Henry Hill [edit]

• As far dorsum equally I can retrieve, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than existence President of the United States. Even earlier I first wandered into the cabstand for an later on-school chore, I knew I wanted to exist a office of them. It was there that I knew that I belonged. To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was total of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. I mean, they did whatsoever they wanted. They double-parked in front of a hydrant and nobody ever gave them a ticket. In the summer when they played cards all night, nobody ever called the cops.
• Paulie might've moved ho-hum, just it was only because Paulie didn't have to motility for everyone.
• He knew what went on at that cab stand up, and every once in a while I'd take to take a beating. But by then I didn't care. The style I saw it everybody takes a chirapsia sometime.
• Hundreds of guys depended on Paulie and he got a slice of everything they made. And information technology was tribute, just like in the old country, except they were doing it here in America. And all they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. And that'south what information technology'south all almost. That's what the FBI could never understand. That what Paulie and the organization does is offer protection for people who tin can't go to the cops. That's it. That'southward all. They're like the law department for wiseguys.
• One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my mother's groceries all the style abode. You know why? Information technology was outta respect.
• For us to alive whatsoever other way was nuts. Uh, to united states, those goody-proficient people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day and worried about their bills were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no assurance. If we wanted something, nosotros but took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained once again.
• At present the guy'due south got Paulie as a partner. Any bug, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the neb? He can go to Paulie. Problem with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy'south gotta come up up with Paulie's money every week, no matter what. Business bad? "Fuck yous, pay me." Oh, you had a fire? "Fuck y'all, pay me." Identify got hit past lightning, huh? "Fuck you lot, pay me." Also, Paulie could exercise anything. Especially run upward bills on the articulation's credit. And why not? Nobody'south gonna pay for it anyway. And as soon equally the deliveries are made in the front end door, you lot motion the stuff out the dorsum and sell it at a discount. Yous take a two hundred dollar case of booze and you sell it for a hundred. It doesn't matter. It's all profit. And then finally, when there's nothing left, when you tin can't borrow another buck from the banking concern or buy some other instance of alcohol, y'all bust the joint out. Y'all low-cal a lucifer.
• For most of the guys, killings got to exist accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. Y'all got out of line, you got whacked. Everybody knew the rules. Simply sometimes, fifty-fifty if people didn't go out of line, they got whacked. I mean, hits just became a addiction for some of the guys. Guys would get into arguments over nothing and earlier you knew it, one of them was dead. And they were shooting each other all the time. Shooting people was a normal thing. It was no big bargain. We had a serious problem with Billy Batts. This was really a touchy matter. Tommy'd killed a made guy. Batts was role of the Gambino crew and was considered untouchable. Before you could impact a made guy, you had to take a good reason. You had to accept a sitdown, and you better get an okay, or you'd exist the one who got whacked.
• Sabbatum night was for wives, merely Friday night at the Copa was e'er for the girlfriends.
• Encounter, you know when yous think of prison house, you get pictures in your mind of all those sometime movies with rows and rows of guys behind bars...But information technology wasn't like that for wiseguys. It actually wasn't that bad. Excepting that I missed Jimmy. He was doing his fourth dimension in Atlanta...I hateful, everybody else in the joint was doing real fourth dimension, all mixed together, living similar pigs. But we lived alone. And we owned the joint.
• [later the Lufthansa heist] It made him sick to accept to plow money over to the guys who stole it. He'd rather whack 'em. Anyhow, what did I intendance? I wasn't asking for anything and likewise, Jimmy was making nice coin with me through my Pittsburgh connections. [showing a montage of dead gangsters] Just all the same, months after the robbery they were finding bodies all over. [police surroundings a truck, open it to run across a expressionless man hanging on a hook like a meat husk] When they found Carbone in the meat truck, he was frozen so stiff information technology took them two days to thaw him out for the dissection.
• Y'all know, we e'er called each other goodfellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, "You lot're gonna like this guy. He's all correct. He's a good fella. He's 1 of us." You sympathize? We were goodfellas. Wiseguys. Merely Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn't even thing that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you've got to be ane hundred per cent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old state. See, information technology's the highest accolade they tin give y'all. It means y'all belong to a family and coiffure. It means that nobody tin can fuck around with you. Information technology also ways you could fuck effectually with anybody merely as long as they aren't also a member. It's like a license to steal. It's a license to exercise anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being fabricated, it was like we were all beingness made. We would at present have one of our ain as a member.
• [virtually Tommy's murder] It was revenge for Billy Batts, and a lot of other things. And there was null that nosotros could do about information technology. Batts was a made human and Tommy wasn't. And we had to sit however and take information technology. It was among the Italians. It was existent greaseball shit. They even shot Tommy in the confront and then his mother couldn't give him an open bury at the funeral.
• For a second, I thought I was expressionless, just when I heard all the noise I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they had been wiseguys, I wouldn't have heard a thing. I would've been dead.
• If you're part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill you. It doesn't happen that way. There weren't any arguments or curses like in the movies. And then your murderers come with smiles. They come equally your friends, the people who take cared for you all of your life, and they always seem to come up at a time when you're at your weakest and most in need of their help.
• It was piece of cake for all of us to disappear. My firm and cars were either registered in the proper noun of my wife or my mother-in-law. My driver'due south license and social security number were phony. I never voted; never paid taxes. My birth document, arrest sheet, and my service record from the Ground forces were all that existed to bear witness to the government I was ever alive.
• Run into, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I however dear the life. And nosotros were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all, merely for the request. Our wives, mothers, kids, everybody rode along. I had paper bags filled with jewelry stashed in the kitchen. I had a sugar bowl total of coke next to the bed. Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I'd bet 20, thirty grand over a weekend and then I'd either accident the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. Didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. When I was broke I would become out and rob some more. We ran everything. Nosotros paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now information technology's all over. And that's the hardest part. Today, everything is different. There'south no action. I have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent nutrient. Correct afterward I got hither, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody. I get to live the balance of my life like a schnook.

Karen Hill [edit]

• One night, Bobby Vinton sent usa champagne. In that location was nada like it. I didn't recall in that location was anything foreign in any of this. You know, a twenty-one-year-onetime child with such connections. He was an exciting guy. He was really nice. He introduced me to everybody. Everybody wanted to be nice to him. And he knew how to handle information technology.
• I know there are women, like my best friends, who would take gotten out of at that place the infinitesimal their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. Only I didn't. I gotta admit the truth. Information technology turned me on.
• Well, nosotros weren't married to nine-to-v guys, but the get-go time I realized how different was when Mickey had a hostess political party. They had bad peel and wore besides much brand-up. I mean, they didn't look very expert. They looked beat-up. And the stuff they wore was thrown together and cheap. A lot of pant suits and double knits. And they talked about how rotten their kids were and nigh beating them with broom handles and leather belts. Just that the kids however didn't pay any attention...After a while, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crimes. It was more like Henry was enterprising and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while the other guys were sitting on their asses waiting for hand-outs. Our husbands weren't brain surgeons. They were bluish-collar guys. The only style they could make extra money, real extra money, was to exit and cut a few corners...We were all so very close. I mean, in that location were never any outsiders effectually. Admittedly never. And being together all the time made everything seem all the more normal.
• We always did everything together and nosotros e'er were in the aforementioned oversupply. Anniversaries, christenings. We but went to each other's houses. The women played cards, and when the kids were born, Mickey and Jimmy were e'er the first at the hospital. And when nosotros went to the Islands or Vegas to holiday, we ever went together. No outsiders, ever. It got to exist normal. Information technology got to where I was fifty-fifty proud that I had the kind of married man who was willing to become out and risk his neck only to get us the footling extras.
• Simply still I couldn't hurt him. How could I hurt him? I couldn't even bring myself to leave him. The truth was that no matter how bad I felt I was all the same very attracted to him. Why should I requite him to someone else? Why should she win?

Dialogue [edit]

Jimmy: [To young Henry, subsequently he gets cleared in court] Congratulations, here's your graduation present [Puts coin in Henry'south pocket]

Henry: For what? I got pinched.

Jimmy: Hey, everybody gets pinched, but you did it correct. You told 'em aught and they got zilch.

Henry: I idea yous'd be mad.

Jimmy: I'g not mad, I'1000 proud of ya. You took your first pinch like a homo, and you lot learned the two most of import things in life. Y'all listenin'? Never rat on your friends, and ALWAYS keep your rima oris shut. [Gives Henry an appreciating low-cal slap on the cheek and leads him out of the court. Exterior, Paulie and many of the other gangsters are waiting for him.]

Paulie: Hey, you lot broke yer ruby! [The other gangsters cheer and congratulate Henry]

---

Henry: You lot're a pistol! You're really funny. You're really funny!

Tommy: What exercise you mean I'one thousand funny?

Henry: It'southward funny, yous know. It'due south a good story, it's funny, you lot're a funny guy!

Tommy: [dangerously] What do you lot mean? You hateful the mode I talk? What?

[Anybody becomes placidity]

Henry: It'due south just, you know, you're but funny. It's funny, the way you tell the story and everything.

Tommy: Funny how? I hateful, what's funny about it?

Anthony: Tommy, no, yous got it all wrong —

Tommy: Oh, oh, Anthony. He'due south a large boy, he knows what he said. [to Henry] What did ya say? Funny how?

Anthony: Y'all're correct.

Henry: Just —

Tommy: What?

Henry: Just, ya know, you're funny.

Tommy: You mean, let me understand this, 'crusade, ya know mayhap information technology'southward me, I'grand a lilliputian fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how? I hateful funny like I'm a clown? I charm you lot? I make you laugh, I'thou here to fuckin' amuse you? What exercise you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny?

Henry: Simply... you know, how you tell the story — what?

Tommy: No, no, I don't know. You said it! How do I know? You lot said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is and so funny about me?! Tell me, tell me what'south funny!

[Long interruption]

Henry: Get the fuck out of hither, Tommy!

[Anybody laughs]

Tommy: Ya motherfucker! I almost had him, I nigh had him! You stuttering prick, yous! Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder near you sometimes, Henry. Y'all may fold under questioning!

---

Karen: [narrating] After awhile, information technology got to exist all normal. None of it seemed like offense. It was more than like Henry was enterprising, and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while all the other guys were sitting on their asses, waiting for handouts. Our husbands weren't encephalon surgeons, they were blue-collar guys. The only way they could brand extra money, real extra money, was to get out and cut a few corners.

[Cuts to Henry and Tommy hijacking a truck]

Tommy: Where's the strongbox, you fuckin' varmint?!

Karen: [narrating] We were all so very close. I mean, there were never whatever outsiders around. Admittedly never. And being together all the time made everything seem all the more normal.

---

Karen: [narrating, at a makeup party with other wives] It was crude seeing the wives of other gangsters. They did not take care of themselves; they looked beat up and their faces were caked with makeup. Most of the time was spent talking about how rotten their kids were; how they decked them or whipped them with electrical wiring and the kids notwithstanding wouldn't pay attention. [later in her chamber] I don't recall I tin can do it, Henry.

Henry: Do what?

Karen: This whole thing. Jeannie said her hubby was sent to jail. God foreclose, what if that happened to yous?

Henry: Bet she didn't tell you why her hubby went there?

Karen: How come?

Henry: To get away from Jeannie! Karen, when it comes to the Mafia no one goes to jail unless they want to. Nosotros beat the organization and I got information technology all figured out. I am organized; I got my shit together. You know who goes to jail? Nigger stickup men. Know why they go caught? Because they fall asleep in the getaway car.

---

Tommy: But don't become bustin' my assurance, Baton, okay?

Baton: Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna break your balls, I'd tell you to go domicile and get your shine box. [To his friends] At present this kid, this kid was great. They, they used to phone call him Spitshine Tommy. I swear to God! Now he'd make your shoes look similar fuckin' mirrors. 'Scuse my language. He was terrific, he was the best. He made a lot of coin, too. Salud, Tommy!

Tommy: No more shines, Billy.

Billy: What?

Tommy: I said no more shines. Maybe you didn't hear nigh it, you lot've been away a long time; they didn't go upwardly in that location and tell you. I don't polish shoes anymore.

Billy: Relax, will ya? You flipped right out, what's got into you? I'm breakin' your balls a petty bit, that's all. I'm only kiddin' with ya.

Tommy: Sometimes you don't sound like you're kidding, you know? There's a lotta people around...

Billy: Tommy, I'k simply kiddin' with you. We're having a political party and I just came home, and I oasis't seen you in a long time, and I'm breakin' your balls, and correct away you're getting fuckin' fresh. I'm sorry, I didn't hateful to offend you.

Tommy: I'yard sorry besides. It'due south okay. No trouble.

Billy: Okay, salud. [moment of silence equally he takes a potable] Now go home and get ya fuckin' shinebox!

Tommy: [smashes his glass in acrimony] Motherfuckin' mutt! Yous, you fuckin' piece of shit...! [Henry and Jimmy restrain him]

Baton: [taunting] Yep, yeah, yeah, come up on, come on! Come on! Let him go!

Tommy: Henry, he bought his fucking button! That faux sometime tough guy! You lot bought your fucking button! Proceed that motherfucker here, continue him here! [leaves]

---

Tommy: Spider, that bandage on your pes is bigger than your fucking caput. Adjacent matter you know he'll have one of these fucking walkers. But you can still dance. Requite us a couple of fucking steps, Spider. You fucking bullshitter, you. Tell the truth. Y'all want sympathy, is that right, sweetie?

Spider: Why don't you become fuck yourself, Tommy?

[Everyone, but Tommy, laughs]

Jimmy: I didn't hear right. I can't believe what I heard. [giving Spider cash] This is for yous. I got respect for this child, he's got a lot of fucking balls. Good for you! Don't take no shit off nobody! A guy shoots him in the pes, he tells him to go fuck himself. Tommy, yous gonna permit this fucking punk become away with that? What'due south this earth coming to?

Tommy: [standing and shooting Spider] That's what the fucking world's coming to, how do ya like that? How's that?

Henry: What is wrong with you lot?!

Jimmy: What is the fucking matter with you lot?! What, are yous stupid or what?! I was kidding with you. Are you a sick maniac?

Tommy: How do I know you're kidding? You breaking my fucking assurance?!

Jimmy: I'grand fucking kidding with you, y'all fucking shoot the guy?!

Henry: [inspecting Spider on the floor] He'southward dead.

Tommy: [later on a brief silence] I'm a good shot, what practice you lot want from me?

Anthony: How could yous miss at this distance?

Tommy: You got a problem with what I did, Anthony? Fucking rat, anyway. His family's all rats, he'd have grown up to be a rat.

Jimmy: Stupid bastard, I can't fucking believe yous. Now, yous're gonna dig the fucking matter now. You're gonna dig the hole. I got no fucking lime, you lot're gonna practice it.

Tommy: Fine! I'll dig the fucking pigsty, I don't give a fuck. What is it, the first pigsty I always dug? I'll fucking dig the hole. Where are the shovels?

---

Paulie: [about Henry's adulterous] Karen came to the firm. She's very upset. This is no adept; y'all gotta straighten this out. We gotta accept calm.

Jimmy: Nosotros don't know what she'll do.

Paulie: She'southward hysterical. Very excited. She'due south wild. And you got to have it easy. You got children. I'm not saying go back to her this minute, but y'all got to go back. Yous got to proceed up appearances.

Jimmy: I got the two of them come to my house every day commiserating, the two of them. I just tin can't have it. I tin't do it, Henry. I tin can't practise it. Nobody says you can't do what y'all desire. We all know that. This is what it is. We know what it is. Y'all have to do what's right. You take to go home to the family. Yous got to go home, okay? Look at me. Yous got to go home. Smarten upwardly.

Paulie: I'll talk to Karen. I'll straighten this out. I know just what to say to her. I'll say yous'll go back to her and it'll be like when you first got married. I'll romance her. It'll be beautiful. I know how to talk to her, peculiarly to her. In the concurrently, Jimmy and Tommy were going to Tampa this weekend. Instead you go with Jimmy.

Jimmy: You come with me.

Paulie: Have a good time. Sit in the sun. Accept a few days off.

Jimmy: We'll have a good time.

Paulie: After that, y'all'll go back to Karen. There'southward no other fashion. No divorce. We're not animoli.

Jimmy: No divorce. She'll never divorce him. She'll kill him, but not divorce him. [they laugh]

---

Karen and her children are visiting Henry in jail

Baby-sit: Mrs. Colina, this style. Sign this book, delight.

Karen signs ledger but something catches her center

Proper noun of Inmate: Henry Hill

Name of Visitor: Janice Rossi

Visitor'southward center

Karen: I saw her, Henry.

Henry: What are yous talking about?

Karen: I saw her name in the register.

Henry: Jesus Christ.

Karen: You want her to visit y'all? Allow her stay upward all night, crying and writing letters to the parole board.

Henry: What am I doing here? Where am I? I'm in jail. I can't stop people from coming to run across me.

Karen: Skillful. Let her sneak this stuff every week. [Karen dangles a bag of illegal drugs in front end him] Let her fight these bastards every week!

Henry: Look what you're doing! Stop it!

Karen: I'thou lamentable. Permit her sneak this shit in for you.

Henry: Will you finish information technology, Karen? Volition you end it?

Karen: Let her do it! Let her do information technology!

Henry: STOP IT!!!

[Kids react to anger; Karen starts to sob]

Karen: Nobody is helping me. I am all alone. Belle and Morrie are broke. I asked your friend Remo for the coin that he owes you lot, and you know what he told me? He told me to take my kids down to the police station and get on welfare.

Henry: Karen, It's going to exist okay.

Karen: Yeah? Even Paulie, since he got out, I've never seen him. I never run across anybody anymore.

Henry: It'due south only you and me. That's what happens when you go away. I told you lot that we're on our own. Forget everybody else. Forget Paulie. As long as he'due south on parole, he doesn't want anybody doing anything.

Karen: I can't practise it.

Henry: Yes, you tin can. Karen, Listen to me. All I demand is for y'all to bring me this stuff. I got a guy in here from Pittsburgh who'll help me move it. Believe me, in a month we're gonna be fine. We won't need everyone.

Karen: I'k afraid. I'g afraid if Paulie finds out...

Henry: Or I but say, Don't worry about him. He is not helping us out. Is he putting whatever food on the table? We've gotta help each other. We've simply gotta-- Mind, We've gotta be actually conscientious while we do it.

Karen: I don't desire to hear a word nigh her anymore, Henry.

Henry: Never.

---

Henry has merely been released from prison

Henry's Children: Daddy! Are you out for adept? Are you coming to my recital? Here is a picture I drew!

Henry takes a look at the depression-hire tenement his wife and kids are looking in and reacts with disgust

Henry: Karen, get packed. Nosotros are moving out. I am going to Pittsburgh tommorow.

Karen: What? Y'all have a coming together with your parole officer tommorow.

Henry: Don't worry, they owe me $xv,000. Who wants to go to Uncle Paulie'south?

Children cheer. Cut to Paulie'southward house where people have a big dinner. Afterwards Paulie speaks to Henry in private

Paulie: I do non want any more of that shit.

Henry: I accept no thought what's going on hither.

Paulie: I mean the drugs! I do not want whatever more than of that junk.

Henry: Paulie, why would I want to get mixed upwardly in that?

Paulie: Just don't practise it. I am not talking about what you did in the can. You get a pass for that. In at that place you lot had to practice what you had to do to support your family. I am talking virtually here and now. I exercise non want to cease up similar Gribbs. Gribbs got twenty years only for proverb good morning to some scuzz who was selling junk behind his back! Gribbs is seventy years old; the poor man is going to dice in prison. So I am alarm everyone, it could exist my son, it could be anyone.

[Cut to Henry making cocaine]

Henry: [voiceover] It took me ii weeks of sneaking the stuff effectually, merely when I did, information technology was a real score. In a month I had a downwardly payment on my business firm and things were rolling. I knew equally long as the greenbacks kept rolling in; Paulie would never find out.

---

Henry: [sniveling] Paulie, I am actually distressing.

Paulie: You fucked up good. You looked me in the eye and treated me like shit; like I was nobody.

Henry: I couldn't come to you lot; non afterward what you said to me. I was aback and so; I am ashamed at present. I swear on my kids, I am clean. But I got nowhere else to go. I could really use some help now.

Paulie: Have this.

[Paulie pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket and easily it to Henry]

Henry: Thank you.

Paulie: And now I have to plough my back on y'all. There is no other way.

Henry: [narrating] My reward for a lifetime of service to Paulie: $3,200. It was not even plenty to pay for my catafalque.

---

Henry enters a diner

Henry{as narrator}: I got there xv minutes early, Jimmy was already there waiting for me.

Jimmy: All my life I said, do not talk on the phone. Now yous see why? Exercise not worry, I think y'all stand a good chance of beating this case.

Jimmy: In that location was a child we knew, turned out to be a rat.

Henry: Really?

Jimmy: Yeah. Found him hiding in Florida. How would yous feel virtually going with Anthony, accept care of that guy?

[Jimmy slips a message with information. Screen freeze-frames]

Henry: [narrating] Jimmy never asked me to whack a guy earlier. Now in the midst of all this he is request me to go to Florida and practice a hit with Anthony? [Screen resumes] That is when I knew I would have never returned from Florida alive.

Taglines [edit]

• Iii Decades of Life in the Mafia.
• "As far dorsum as I can recall, I've always wanted to be a gangster."—Henry Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1955.
• Murderers come with smiles.
• Shooting people was 'No big deal'.
• In a world that'due south powered by violence, on the streets where the violent have power, a new generation carries on an sometime tradition.

Bandage [edit]

• Robert De Niro - Jimmy Conway
• Ray Liotta - Henry Hill
• Joe Pesci - Tommy DeVito
• Lorraine Bracco - Karen Hill
• Paul Sorvino - Paul Cicero
• Chuck Depression - Morris 'Morrie' Kessler
• Christopher Serrone - Young Henry Colina
• Frank Sivero - Frankie Carbone
• Tony Darrow - Sonny Bunz
• Frank Vincent - Billy Batts
• Frank Adonis - Anthony Stabile
• Catherine Scorsese - Mrs. DeVito, Tommy'due south Mother
• Gina Mastrogiacomo - Janice Rossi
• Suzanne Shepherd - Karen's Mother
• Debi Mazar - Sandy
• Kevin Corrigan - Michael Loma
• Charles Scorsese - Vinnie
• Michael Imperioli - Spider
• Tony Sirico - Tony Stacks
• Samuel Fifty. Jackson - Stacks Edwards
• Vincent Pastore - Man with Coat Rack
• Ray DeBenedictis - "Pete"
• Jerry Vale - Himself
• Henny Youngman - Himself

External links [edit]

• Goodfellas quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• Goodfellas at Rotten Tomatoes
• Goodfellas at Filmsite.org

cheneyitis1964.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Goodfellas

Share this post