Arnold Rothstein Quotes in King of the Roaring 20's: The Story of Arnold Rothstein (1961)

[first lines]

receptionist: [answers the telephone] International Tobacco. Yes. Just a moment, please.

Arnold Rothstein: [Rothstein hands a card to the receptionist] I'd like to see Mr. Simmons, please.

receptionist: Oh yes, you're expected. Go right in.

Arnold Rothstein: The royal flush is the best hand you can hold in poker. It's the 10, the jack, the queen, the king and the ace of any one suit. Now a hand like that comes along once in a lifetime. The odds are 649,740 to 1.

Arnold Rothstein: It's the royal flush I want. Just one time before I die. A royal flush in a no limit game.

Tom Fowler: Sometimes justice is more important than ethics.

Arnold Rothstein: That's the way I feel about it.

Arnold Rothstein: Mr. Luciano, you're walking down the street. Suddenly you realize you're being followed. It's a hit. Walking towards you is a second gunman. You have time to fire at only one of them. Which one do...

Lucky: [cutting him off] I don't accept the question. To live, I gotta kill 'em both.

Arnold Rothstein: What's the secret of America? MONEY! Everything is MONEY, Charlie. But you'll never make any money, because you dress like a schmuck.

Meyer Lansky: We gotta get tough with Masseria and Faranzano. Only, we can't afford a war. They got armies; we don't.

Arnold Rothstein: We got balls and brains; you got those, you don't need an army... 100 years ago, Austria was run by a prince named Metternich. Austria was weak, and its neighbors were strong; but Metternich was a cold, caluclating fox. If one country got too strong, he organized an alliance against it. He would bring Europe to the brink of war, and then everybody thanked him when he kept war from happening. He barely had an army, but he had Europe by the *kishkes.*

Arnold Rothstein: [his last words, while playing cards] ... What's the matter? Did I make a wrong bet?

[Mad Dog Coll guns him down from behind]

Lucky: I don't have a wife, because emotion is dangerous.

Arnold Rothstein: Aren't you human?

Lucky: Would it help?

Arnold Rothstein: I have ships and distilleries in Scotland. I need distribution in New York.

Lucky: Masseria? Faranzano?

Arnold Rothstein: Either of them would kill me.

Lucky: And I wouldn't because...?

Arnold Rothstein: You have Jewish partners.

Lucky: Maybe I kill them too.

Arnold Rothstein: You can't afford to; you're in the squeeze. Either Masseria or Faranzano realize you exist, they squash you like an ant...

Lucky: [the penny drops for him] ... Unless I get a powerful friend, right?

Arnold Rothstein: [indicates himself] Exactly.

Arnold Rothstein: ...When war comes, the winner will be the one who gets his enemy to trust him.

Lucky: How do I do that?

Arnold Rothstein: You save his life.

[Atell and Rothstein are discussing the plan to fix the series]

Abe Atell: They say that six or seven guys. I find that hard to believe.

Arnold Rothstein: Doesn't surprise me.

Abe Atell: Yeah, but they're the champs.

Arnold Rothstein: You were champ, Abe, you went down for the bucks.

Abe Atell: This is different.

Arnold Rothstein: Look, champ. I know guys like that. I grew up with them. I was the fat kid they wouldn't let play. "Sit down, fat boy'. That's what they'd say "Sit down, maybe you'll learn something." Well, I learned something alright. Pretty soon, I owned the game, and those guys I grew up with come to me with their hats in their hands. Tell me, champ, all those years of puggin', how much money did you make?

Abe Atell: The honest fights or the ones I tanked?

Arnold Rothstein: Altogether, I must've made ten times that amount betting on you and I never took a punch.

Abe Atell: Yeah, but I was champ. Featherweight champeen of the world!

Arnold Rothstein: Yesterday. That was yesterday.

Abe Atell: No A.R. you're wrong. I was champ, and can't nothin take that away.