Henry Hill Quotes in Goodfellas (1990)

Henry Hill: You're a pistol, you're really funny. You're really funny.

Tommy DeVito: What do you mean I'm funny?

Henry Hill: It's funny, you know. It's a good story, it's funny, you're a funny guy.

[laughs]

Tommy DeVito: What do you mean, you mean the way I talk? What?

Henry Hill: It's just, you know. You're just funny, it's... funny, you know the way you tell the story and everything.

Tommy DeVito: [it becomes quiet] Funny how? What's funny about it?

Anthony Stabile: Tommy no, you got it all wrong.

Tommy DeVito: Oh, oh, Anthony. He's a big boy, he knows what he said. What did ya say? Funny how?

Henry Hill: Jus...

Tommy DeVito: What?

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

Tommy DeVito: You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

Henry Hill: Just... you know, how you tell the story, what?

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

Henry Hill: [long pause] Get the fuck out of here, Tommy!

Tommy DeVito: [everyone laughs] Ya motherfucker! I almost had him, I almost had him. Ya stuttering prick ya. Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold under questioning.

Henry Hill: [narrating] As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.

Henry Hill: [narrating] You know, we always called each other good fellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, "You're gonna like this guy. He's all right. He's a good fella. He's one of us." You understand? We were good fellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn't even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you've got to be one hundred per cent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country. See, it's the highest honor they can give you. It means you belong to a family and crew. It means that nobody can fuck around with you. It also means you could fuck around with anybody just as long as they aren't also a member. It's like a license to steal. It's a license to do anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being made, it was like we were all being made. We would now have one of our own as a member.

Henry Hill: [narrating] Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn't have to move for anybody.

Jimmy Conway: What's the fuckin' matter with you? What - what is the fuckin' matter with you? What are you, stupid or what? Tommy, Tommy, I'm kidding with you. What the fuck are you doin'? What are you, a fuckin' sick maniac?

Tommy DeVito: How am I meant to know you're kidding? What you mean, you're kidding? You breaking my fuckin' balls?

Jimmy Conway: I'm fuckin' kidding with you! You fuckin' shoot the guy?

Henry Hill: He's dead.

Tommy DeVito: Good shot. What do you want from me? Good shot. Fuckin' rat anyway. His family's all rats. He'll grow up to be a rat.

Jimmy Conway: You stupid bastard, I can't fuckin' believe you. Now, you're gonna dig the fuckin' thing now. You're gonna dig the hole. You're gonna do it. I got no fuckin' lime. You're gonna do it.

Tommy DeVito: Who the fuck cares? I'll dig the fuckin' hole. I don't give a fuck. What is it, the first hole I dug? Not the first time I dug a hole. I'll fuckin' dig a hole. Where are the shovels?

[last lines]

Henry Hill: [narrating] Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I'd either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies.

[Henry leaves the witness stand and speaks directly to the camera]

Henry Hill: Didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. When I was broke, I'd go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it's all over.

[narrating]

Henry Hill: And that's the hardest part. Today everything is different; there's no action... have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody... get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

Henry Hill: [narrating] Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week, no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me.

Henry Hill: [narrating, Henry has just been busted for dealing drugs] For a second I thought I was dead. But, when I heard all the noise, I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they'd been wiseguys, I wouldn't have heard a thing. I would've been dead.

Henry Hill: [narrating] Jimmy was the kind of guy that rooted for bad guys in the movies.

Henry Hill: I swear to my fucking mother, if you touch her again, YOU'RE DEAD.

Henry Hill: [narrating] If you're part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill you, doesn't happen that way. There weren't any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who've cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you're at your weakest and most in need of their help.

Henry Hill: [narrating] And then there was Jimmy Two Times, who got that nickname because he said everything twice, like:

Jimmy Two Times: I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers.

Henry Hill: [narrating] One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my mother's groceries all the way home. You know why? It was outta respect.

Tommy DeVito: [sitting in car with Henry] The only thing, is she won't go out with me alone, you know?

Henry Hill: No.

Tommy DeVito: No, what?

Henry Hill: No.

Tommy DeVito: No, what, Henry? Who the fuck asked you anything? I didn't even ask you anything, at least hear what I have to say.

Henry Hill: Alright, what?

Tommy DeVito: Okay, what? She don't want to go out with Italians alone. She's prejudiced against Italians. Do you believe that? In this day and age? What the fuck is the world coming to? I can't believe this, prejudiced against Ital - a Jew broad - prejudiced against Italians. Anyway, she won't go out with me alone unless her girlfriend comes with her, so I figured you could come along and go out with her girlfriend.

Henry Hill: See? I knew it - I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

Tommy DeVito: You knew what, Henry? See? What? What the fuck is wrong with that?

Henry Hill: When is this?

Tommy DeVito: Tomorrow night.

Henry Hill: I can't tomorrow night, I gotta meet Tuddy.

Tommy DeVito: You could meet Tuddy. You could fucking come early and then still go.

Henry Hill: Tommy, Tommy. Why do you always do this to me?

Tommy DeVito: Don't give me that fucking "Tommy" shit. What the fuck I asked you for, Henry? I asked you for a favor. I do a lot of fucking favors for you, don't I? I'm trying to bang this fucking broad, you wanna help me out!

[view switches to outside of car with view of restaurant, smoke billows from restaurant windows]

Tommy DeVito: It's like... uh... ah...

Henry Hill: What?

Tommy DeVito: I don't understand you! She's fucking beautiful. Her fucking family, they live in the Five Towns there. You know these Jew broads got a lot of money. Maybe the family owns the whole fucking block. and you happen to end up with a big fucking score, motherfucker.

Henry Hill: [turning to look at the restaurant] Oh fuck!

Tommy DeVito: What?

Henry Hill: See? With your fucking mouth!

[car speeds away]

Henry Hill: [narrating] For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good 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 balls. If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.

Henry Hill: [narrating] I felt he used too many onions, but it was still a very good sauce.

Paul Cicero: Vinnie, don't put too many onions in the sauce.

Vinnie: I didn't put too much onions, uh, Paul. Three small onions. That's all I did.

Johnny Dio: Three onions? How many cans of tomatoes you put in there?

Vinnie: I put two cans, two big cans.

Johnny Dio: You don't need three onions.

Henry Hill: [narrating] All they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. That's what it's all about. That's what the FBI can never understand - that what Paulie and the organization offer is protection for the kinds of guys who can't go to the cops. They're like the police department for wiseguys.

Karen: What do you do?

Henry Hill: I'm in construction.

Karen: [She feels the softness of his hands] They don't feel like you're in construction.

Henry Hill: Ah, I'm a union delegate.

Henry Hill: [narrating] Whenever we needed money, we'd rob the airport. To us, it was better than Citibank.

Henry Hill: [narrating] Killing's got to be accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you got whacked. Everybody knew the rules.

Paul Cicero: I don't want any more of that shit.

Henry Hill: What shit? What are you talking about?

Paul Cicero: Just stay away from the garbage, you know what I mean.

Henry Hill: Look, Paulie...

Paul Cicero: I'm not talking about what you did inside, you did what you had to do, I'm talking about now, from now, here and now.

Henry Hill: Paulie, why would I want to get into that...

Paul Cicero: Don't make a jerk out of me, just don't do it... just don't do it. Now I want to talk to you about Jimmy, you have to watch out for him. He's a good earner but he's wild, takes too many chances.

Henry Hill: Yeah, I know that, I know Jimmy, you think I would take chances like Jimmy?

Paul Cicero: And Tommy, he's a good kid too. But he's crazy, he's a cowboy, he's got too much to prove. You gotta watch out for kids like this.

Henry Hill: Yeah, I know what they are, I only use them for certain things, believe me, you don't have to worry.

Paul Cicero: Listen, I ain't gonna get fucked like Gribbs, understand? Gribbs is 70 years old, and the fuckin' guy's gonna die in prison. I don't need that. So I'm warning everybody, EVERYBODY. It could be my son, it could be anybody. Gribbs got 20 years just for saying "hello" to some fuck who was sneaking behind his back selling junk. I don't need that. Ain't gonna happen to me, you understand?

Henry Hill: Uh huh.

Paul Cicero: You know that you're only out early because I got you a job. I don't need this heat, understand that.

Henry Hill: Uh huh.

Paul Cicero: And you see anybody fucking around with this shit, you're going to tell me, right?

Henry Hill: Yeah.

Paul Cicero: [slaps him] That means anybody!

Henry Hill: All right.

Paul Cicero: Yeah?

Henry Hill: Yeah, of course.

Henry Hill: [narrating] Jimmy had never asked me to do a hit before, and now he's asking me to go down to Florida with Anthony to make a hit.

[Jimmy gives him a pack of matches with a number]

Henry Hill: [narrating] That's when I knew I would never have come back from Florida alive.

Henry Hill: [narrating] And when the cops, when they assigned a whole army to stop Jimmy, what'd he do? He made 'em partners.

Henry Hill: [narrating] It was revenge for Billy Batts, and a lot of other things. And there was nothing that we could do about it. Batts was a made man, and Tommy wasn't. And we had to sit still and take it. It was among the Italians. It was real greaseball shit. They even shot Tommy in the face so his mother couldn't give him an open coffin at the funeral.

Jimmy Conway: Yeah.

Vinnie: Yeah.

Jimmy Conway: Who's this?

Vinnie: This is Vinnie.

Jimmy Conway: Vinnie, what happened?

Vinnie: Well we-...

Jimmy Conway: You get it straightened out?

Vinnie: No, we had a problem... and uh, we tried to do everything we could.

Jimmy Conway: What d'you mean?

Vinnie: Well, you what I mean. He's gone, and we couldn't do nothing about it.

[pause]

Vinnie: That's it.

Jimmy Conway: What d'you mean? What d'you mean? Uh...

Vinnie: He's gone. Uh, he's gone.

[pause]

Vinnie: And that's it.

Jimmy Conway: [smashing telephone] Fuck. Can't fuckin' believe that, can't fuckin'...

Jimmy Conway: [crying] Fuck it, fuck... the fuck...

[Henry exits diner]

Henry Hill: What happened?

Jimmy Conway: They whacked him. They fuckin' whacked him.

Henry Hill: Aw, fuck.

[Jimmy kicks phone booth]

Jimmy Conway: Motherfucker!

[pushes over phone booth]

Jimmy Conway: [cries]

Henry Hill: [narrating] When they found Carbone in the meat truck, he was frozen so stiff it took them three days to thaw him out for the autopsy.

Henry Hill: [after Karen points gun at him while he's sleeping] I got enough to worry about getting whacked on the street! I gotta come home for this? I should fucking kill you!

Henry Hill: [narrating; Paul is slicing the garlic with a razor] In prison, dinner was always a big thing. We had a pasta course and then we had a meat or fish. Paulie did the prep work. He was doing a year for contempt, and he had this wonderful system for doing the garlic. He used a razor, and he used to slice it so thin that he used to liquefy in the pan with just a little oil. It was a very good system.

Morrie: Henry, you're a good kid, I've been good to you, you've been good to me. But there's something really unreasonable going on here. Jimmy's being an unconsionable ball-breaker. I never agreed to 3 points on top of the vig! Am I something special? Some sort of schmuck on wheels?

Henry Hill: Morrie, please! You borrowed Jimmy's money, pay him.

Morrie: I never agreed to 3 points on top of the vig! What am I, fuckin nuts? Come on!

Henry Hill: Are you gonna argue with Jimmy Conway? Just give him his money so we can get the fuck outta here!

Morrie: Hey! Fuck 'em! Fuck 'em in the ear! What are you talking about? Fuck 'em in the other ear, that son of a bitch! Did I ever bust his balls? Did I? Did I? I could've jumped the dime a million times, and I wouldn't have to pay tip!

Henry Hill: Come on, Morrie, you're talking crazy, stop it!

Jimmy Conway: [Grabs telephone cord and chokes Morrie with it, then his wig falls off and Henry starts laughing] You got money for that fuckin' commercial. Fuckin' commercial, you don't got my money, you don't got my fuckin' money, huh?

Henry Hill: Jimmy, he'll pay, he'll pay.

Jimmy Conway: I'll fuckin' kill you, get the money, you fuckin' cocksucker, you hear me?

[Phone rings]

Jimmy Conway: Pay me my money.

Morrie: Hello? Who's this? He's here.

[Gives phone to Henry]

Morrie: Jimmy, I'm sorry.

Jimmy Conway: Yeah? You should be sorry. Don't fuckin' do it again and give me the money. Give me the fuckin' money, You hear me? You hear me, I gotta come here and you bust my balls? Give me the fuckin' money.

Morrie: OK, OK, OK. I'll pay you, kid.

Henry Hill: [With the suitcase open on the desk, Henry counts out stacks of cash] Thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty, sixty thousand.

Jimmy Conway: It's gonna be a good summer.

Henry Hill: [narrating] By the time I grew up, there was thirty billion a year in cargo moving through Idlewild Airport and believe me, we tried to steal every bit of it.

Tommy DeVito: [Henry, Jimmy and Tommy are digging up Billy Batts' decomposed corpse. Henry is coughing from the stench, while the others don't appear to be bothered] Hey, Henry, Henry, hurry up, will ya? My mother's gonna make some fried peppers and sausage for us.

[Jimmy and Tommy laugh while Henry coughs]

Jimmy Conway: Oh, hey, Henry, Henry! Here's an arm!

Henry Hill: Very funny, guys.

Jimmy Conway: Here's a leg!

Tommy DeVito: Here's a wing!

[laughs]

Tommy DeVito: Hey, what do you like, the leg or the wing, Henry? Or ya still go for the old hearts and lungs?

Henry Hill: [Vomiting] Oh, that's so bad!

Henry Hill: Now take me to jail.

[first lines]

Henry Hill: The fuck is that?

Henry Hill: [narrating] Thirty-two hundred dollars he gave me. Thirty-two hundred dollars for a lifetime. It wasn't even enough to pay for the coffin.

Henry Hill: [narrating] So what does she do after she hangs up with me? After everything I told her? After all her "yeah, yeah, yeah" bullshit? She picks up the phone and calls from the house. Now, if anybody was listening, they'd know everything - they knew a package was leaving from my house - they'd even have the time and flight number, thanks to her.

Henry Hill: [narrating] I only bought the damn guns because he wanted them, and now he didn't want them.

Jimmy Conway: What the fuck are these? None of them fit. What's the matter with you? What, do you want me to pay for this shit? I'm not paying for it!

Henry Hill: [narrating] I didn't say a thing. He was so pissed off, he didn't even say goodbye.

Jimmy Conway: Stop with those fucking drugs. They're making your mind into mush. You hear me? Take 'em back!

Jimmy Conway: Watch this.

Henry Hill: Ah, don't fuck with them.

Jimmy Conway: I do it all the time. Bust their fucking balls.

Henry Hill: Don't give 'em the satisfaction, the fucks.

Jimmy Conway: [taps on car window of two cops following him, who had fallen asleep] Come on, fuckos, let's go for a ride.

[he and Henry laugh]

Jimmy Conway: Keep 'em up all night.

Henry Hill: [Narrating] These are the guys Jimmy put together for what turned out to be the biggest heist in American history: the Lufthansa heist. Tommy and Carbone were going to grab the outside guard and make him get us in the front door, Frenchy and Joe Buddha had to round up the workers, Johnny Roastbeef had to keep them all tied up and away from the alarm, even Stacks Edwards got in on it, all he was supposed to do was steal the panel truck and afterwards compact it with a friend of ours in New Jersey. Only Morrie was driving us nuts - just because he set this up, he felt he could bust Jimmy's balls for an advance on the money we were going to steal. He didn't mean anything by it; it was just the way he was.

Henry Hill: [voiceover] I could see for the first time that Jimmy was a nervous wreck. His mind was going in eight different directions at once.

Jimmy Conway: Think Morrie tells his wife everything?

Henry Hill: Morrie? Him?

Henry Hill: [voiceover] That's when I knew that Jimmy was gonna whack Morrie. That's how it happens. That's how fast it takes for a guy to get whacked.

Henry Hill: [Repeated line, narrating while attempting to convince the audience the criminal exploits he was apart of and occurred without exaggerating the events] believe me...

Henry Hill: [first lines - quoting] One of my wishes is that those dark trees, so old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom, but stretched away unto the edge of doom. / I should not be withheld but that some day into their vastness I should steal away, fearless of ever finding open land, or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. / I do not see why I should e'er turn back, or those should not set forth upon my track to overtake me, who should miss me here and long to know if still I held them dear. / They would not find me changed from him they knew - only more sure of all I thought was true. - Into My Own, Robert Frost, 1913

Charles Casper Hill: Just stay away from Owen's hut, Henry.

Henry Hill: Why, is it haunted?