Tom Hagen Quotes in The Godfather (1972)

Michael: My credit good enough to buy you out?

Moe Greene: Buy me out?

[Fredo laughs nervously]

Michael: The hotel, the casino. The Corleone Family wants to buy you out.

Moe Greene: The Corleone Family wants to buy me out? No, I buy you out, you don't buy me out.

Michael: Your casino loses money, maybe we can do better.

Moe Greene: You think I'm skimmin off the top, Mike?

Michael: [Michael shakes his head] You're unlucky.

Moe Greene: You goddamn guineas you really make me laugh. I do you a favor and take Freddie in when you're having a bad time, and now you're gonna try and push me out!

Michael: You took Freddie in because the Corleone Family bankrolled your casino, and the Molinari Family on the Coast guaranteed his safety. Now we're talking business, let's talk business.

Moe Greene: Yeah, let's talk business, Mike. First of all, you're all done. The Corleone Family don't even have that kind of muscle anymore. The Godfather's sick, right? You're getting chased out of New York by Barzini and the other Families. What do you think is going on here? You think you can come to my hotel and take over? I talked to Barzini - I can make a deal with him, and still keep my hotel!

Michael: Is that why you slapped my brother around in public?

Fredo: Aw, now that, that was nothin', Mike. Moe didn't mean nothin' by that. Yeah, sure he flies off the handle every once in a while, but me and him, we're good friends, right Moe?

Moe Greene: I got a business to run. I gotta kick asses sometimes to make it run right. We had a little argument, Freddy and me, so I had to straighten him out.

Michael: You straightened my brother out?

Moe Greene: He was banging cocktail waitresses two at a time! Players couldn't get a drink at the table! What's the matter with you?

Michael: I leave for New York tomorrow, think about a price.

Moe Greene: Sonofabitch! Do you know who I am? I'm Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!

Fredo: Wait a minute, Moe, Moe, I got an idea. Tom, you're the Consiglieri and you can talk to the Don, you can explain...

Tom Hagen: Now hold it right there. The Don is semi-retired and Mike is in charge of the Family business now. If you have anything to say, say it to Michael.

Fredo: [Moe Greene leaves] Mike! You do not come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Greene like that!

Michael: Fredo, you're my older brother, and I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the Family again. Ever.

Tom Hagen: Mr Corleone is Johnny Fontane's godfather. Now Italians regard that as a very close, a very sacred religious relationship.

Jack Woltz: Tell your boss he can ask for anything else, but this is one favour I can't grant him.

Tom Hagen: Mr. Corleone never asks a second favor once he's refused the first, understood?

Jack Woltz: You don't understand. Johnny Fontane never gets that movie. That part is perfect for him. It'll make him a big star. I'm gonna run him out of the movies. And let me tell you why. Johnny Fontane ruined one of Woltz International's most valuable proteges. For three years we had her under contract, singing lessons, dancing lessons, acting lessons. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was gonna make her a big star. And let me be even more frank, just to show you that I'm not a hard-hearted man, that it's not all dollars and cents. She was beautiful! She was young, she was innocent. She was the greatest piece of ass I've ever had, and I've had 'em all over the world. And then Johnny Fontaine comes along with his olive oil voice and guinea charm and she runs off. She threw it all away just to make me look ridiculous. And a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous. Now you get the hell out of here! And if that goomba tries any rough stuff, you tell him I ain't no bandleader. Yeah, I heard that story.

[Hagen has been calmly eating his meal throughout Woltz's tirade]

Tom Hagen: Thank you for the dinner and a very pleasant evening. Have your car take me to the airport. Mr Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news at once.

[at midnight, Don Corleone walks into his office and finds Tom Hagen taking a drink]

Don Corleone: Give me a drop.

[Hagen hands the Don his glass of anisette]

Don Corleone: My wife is crying upstairs. I hear cars coming to the house. Consigliore of mine, I think it's time you told your Don what everyone seems to know.

Tom Hagen: I didn't tell Mama anything. I was just about to come up and wake you so that I could tell you.

Don Corleone: But you needed a drink first.

[Hagen nods]

Don Corleone: And now you've had your drink.

Tom Hagen: They shot Sonny on the causeway. He's dead.

[the Don accepts this news without any sign of emotion, except to close his eyes and remain silent for a few minutes]

Don Corleone: [speaking at last] I want no inquiries made. I want no acts of vengeance. I want you to arrange a meeting with the heads of the Five Families. This war stops now.

Tom Hagen: When I meet with Tattaglia's men, should I insist all their drug middlemen have clean records?

Don Corleone: Mention it, don't insist. But Barzini will know that without being told.

Tom Hagen: You mean Tattaglia...

Don Corleone: Tattaglia is a pimp. He never could have outfought Santino. But I didn't know until this day that it was Barzini all along.

Michael Corleone: Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?

Tom Hagen: Come on, Mikey...

Michael Corleone: Tom, wait a minute. I'm talking about a cop that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about a - a - a dishonest cop - a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That's a terrific story. And we have newspaper people on the payroll, don't we, Tom?

[Tom nods]

Michael Corleone: And they might like a story like that.

Tom Hagen: They might, they just might.

Michael Corleone: [to Sonny] It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.

Tom Hagen: I have to get back to work. It's part of the wedding. No Sicilian can ever refuse a request on his daughter's wedding day.

Don Corleone: Call Bonasera. We need him now.

[Tom Hagen calls Amerigo Bonasera]

Tom Hagen: [on the phone] This is Tom Hagen, calling for Vito Corleone at his request. Now, you owe your Don a service. He has no doubt that you will repay him. In one hour he will be at your funeral parlor to ask for your help. Be there to greet him.

[as ordered, a nervous Bonasera meets the Don at his parlor]

Don Corleone: Well, my friend, are you ready to do me this service?

Bonasera: Yes. What do you want me to do?

[the two walk into the embalming room, where a corpse lies on a table... ]

Don Corleone: [staring at the table] I want you to use all your powers, and all your skills. I don't want his mother to see him this way.

[he draws back the sheet to reveal, to a horrified Bonasera, the bullet-smashed face of Sonny Corleone]

Don Corleone: [breaking down for a moment] Look how they massacred my boy...

Tom Hagen: Sollozo is known as the Turk. He's supposed to be very good with a knife. But only in matters of business, or of some sort of reasonable complaint. His business is narcotics. He has the fields in Turkey, where they grow the poppy. In Sicily he has the plant to process it into heroin. He needs cash and he needs protection from the police for which he gives a piece of the action, I couldn't find out how much. The Tattaglia Family is behind him here in New York so they have to be in it for something.

Don Corleone: What about his prison record?

Tom Hagen: Two terms, one in Italy, and one here. He's known as a top narcotics man.

Don Corleone: Santino, what do you think?

Sonny: There's a lot of money in that white powder.

Don Corleone: Tom?

Tom Hagen: Well, I say yes. There is more money potential in narcotics than anything else we're looking at now. If we don't get into it, somebody else will, maybe one of the Five Families, maybe all of them. And with the money they earn they'll be able to buy more police and political power. Then they come after us. Right now we have the unions and we have the gambling and those are the best things to have. But narcotics is a thing of the future. If we don't get a piece of that action we risk everything we have. Not now, but ten years from now.

Sonny: Well, what's your answer gonna be, Pop?

Jack Woltz: All right, start talking!

Tom Hagen: I come from a personal friend of Mr Johnny Fontane. That friend promises his undying friendship if you would do him a small favour.

Jack Woltz: What's that?

Tom Hagen: Give Johnny a part in that war movie you're starting next week.

[Woltz signs a document with a smile and walks away, Hagen alongside him]

Jack Woltz: And what favours does this friend promise in exchange for giving Johnny the part?

Tom Hagen: You've got some labour trouble coming up. My client promises to make that trouble disappear. You have a top star who makes a lot of money, but he just graduated from marijuana to heroin...

Jack Woltz: [all East Side now] Are you trying to muscle me?

Tom Hagen: Absolutely not. I've come to ask a service for a friend...

Jack Woltz: Now you listen to me, you smooth-talking son-of-a-bitch, let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is! Johnny Fontane will never get that movie! I don't care how many dago guinea wop greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork!

Tom Hagen: I'm German-Irish.

Jack Woltz: Well, let me tell you something, my kraut-mick friend, I'm gonna make so much trouble for you, you won t know what hit you!

Tom Hagen: Mr. Woltz, I'm a lawyer. I have not threatened you.

Jack Woltz: I know almost every big lawyer in New York, who the hell are you?

Tom Hagen: I have a special practice. I handle one client. Now you have my number, I'll wait for your call. By the way, I admire your pictures very much.

[Hagen leaves, with Woltz staring after him]

Jack Woltz: [to an underling] Check him out...

[as Tessio and Hagen walk to Michael's house, they are met by a bodyguard, Willi Cicci]

Willi Cicci: Sal... Tom... the boss says he'll come in a separate car. He says for you two to go on ahead.

Tessio: Hell, he can't do that; that screws up all my arrangements.

Willi Cicci: Well, that's what he said.

Tom Hagen: I can't go with you either, Tessio.

[just then, Michael's bodyguards materialize around them, Tessio understands everything]

Tessio: [to Hagen] Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.

Tom Hagen: He understands that.

Willi Cicci: [removing Tessio's gun] Excuse me, Sally.

Tessio: Can you get me off the hook, Tom? For old times' sake?

Tom Hagen: [shakes his head] Can't do it, Sally.

[Hagen watches sadly as Tessio is led by Cicci and the others to a waiting car]

Tessio: Barzini's people chisle my territory and we do nothing about it. Pretty soon there won't be anyplace in Brooklyn that I can hang my hat.

Michael: Try and be patient.

Clemenza: I'm not asking for help, Mike, just take off the handcuffs.

Michael: Be patient.

Clemenza: We gotta protect ourselves. At least give me the chance to recruit some new men.

Michael: No. I don't want to give Barzini any excuse to start fighting.

Tessio: Mike, you're wrong.

Clemenza: Don Corleone, you once said the day would come when me and Tessio could form our own families. Until today I would never think of such a thing but now I must ask your permission.

Don Corleone: Well, Michael's head of the family now and if give his permission then you have my blessing.

Michael: After we make the move to Nevada you can break off from the Corleone Family and go off on your own. After we make the move to Nevada.

Clemenza: How long will that take?

Michael: Six months.

Tessio: Forgive me, Godfather, but with you gone me and Pete will come under Barzini's thumb sooner or later.

Clemenza: And I hate that Goddamn Barzini. In six months time there won't be nothin' left to build on.

Don Corleone: Do you have faith in my judgement?

Clemenza: Yes.

Don Corleone: Do I have your loyalty?

Clemenza: Yes, always Godfather.

Don Corleone: Then be a friend to Michael. Do as he says.

Michael: There are negotiations being made that are going to answer all of your questions and solve all of your problems. That's all I can tell you right now. Carlo, you grew up in Nevada. When we make our move there you're going to be my right hand man. Tom Hagen is no longer Consigliari. He's going to be our lawyer in Vegas. That's no reflection on Tom it's just the way I want it. Besides, if I ever help who's a better Consigliari than my father. That's it.

[Everyone except Hagen leaves]

Tom Hagen: Mike, why am I out?

Michael: You're not a wartime Consigliari, Tom. Things could get rough with the move we're making.

Don Corleone: Tom, I advised Michael. I never thought you were a bad Consigliari. I thought Santino was a bad Don, rest in peace. Michael has all my confidence as do you. But there are reasons why you must have nothing to do with what's going to happen.

Tom Hagen: Maybe I could help.

Michael: You're out, Tom.

Sonny: Tom-anuch! Hey, a hundred button men on the street twenty-four hours a day. That Turk shows one hair on his ass, he's dead. Believe me.

Sonny: [to Michael, whose face is bruised] Hey Michael, c'mere. Let me look at you. You look beautiful, just beautiful, you're gorgeous. Hey, listen to this. The Turk, he wants to talk. You imagine the nerve on this son of a bitch, hey? Craps out last night he wants a meetin' today.

Tom Hagen: What did he say?

Sonny: What did he say? Badda-beep, badda-bap, badda-boop, badda-beep, he wants us to send Michael to hear the proposition, and the promise is the deal is so good we can't refuse. Hey.

Tom Hagen: What about Bruno Tattaglia?

Sonny: That's part of the deal. Bruno cancels out what they did to my father.

Tom Hagen: Sonny, we ought to hear what they have to say.

Sonny: No, no, no! No more! Not this time, Consigliere! No more meetin's! No more discussions! No more Sollozzo tricks! You give 'em one message - I want Solozzo. If not, it's all-out war, we go to the mattresses.

Tom Hagen: Some of the other families won't sit still for all-out war!

Sonny: Then they hand me Sollozzo!

Tom Hagen: Your father would want to hear this. This is business, not personal.

Sonny: They shot my father? It's business, your ass.

Tom Hagen: Even the shooting of your father was business, not personal, Sonny!

Sonny: Well then, business will have to suffer, all right? And listen, do me a favor, Tom. No more advice on how to patch things up, just help me win, please. All right?

Tom Hagen: I found out about this Captain McClusky who broke Mike's jaw.

Sonny: What about him?

Tom Hagen: Now, he's definitely on Sollozzo's payroll and for big money. McClusky has agreed to be the Turk's bodyguard. What you have to understand, Sonny, is that while Sollozzo's being guarded like this he is invulnerable. Now, nobody has ever gunned down a New York police captain. Never. It would be disastrous. All the five families would come after you, Sonny. The Corleone Family would be outcast. Even the old man's political protection would run for cover. So, do me a favor, take this into consideration.

Sonny: All right, we wait.

Michael: It can't wait.

Sonny: Huh?

Michael: It can't wait. I don't care what Sollozzo says about a deal, he's gonna kill Pop. That's it. That's a key for him. Gotta get Sollozzo.

Clemenza: Mikey's right.

Sonny: Let me ask you something, Professor. I mean, what about this McClusky, huh? What do we do with this cop here?

Michael: They want to have a meeting with me, right? It will be me, McClusky and Sollozzo. Let's set the meeting. Get our informants to find out where it's going to be held. Now we insist it's a public place - a bar or a restaurant, some place where there's people there so I'll feel safe. They're going to search me when I first meet them, right? So I can't have a weapon on me then. But if Clemenza can figure a way to have a weapon planted there for me, then I'll kill them both.

Sonny: [Clemenza, Tessio and Sonny laugh] Hey. What are you gonna do? Nice college boy, huh? Didn't want to get mixed up in the family business? Now you want to gun down a police captain, what, 'cause he slapped you in the face a little bit, huh? What do you think, this the Army where you shoot 'em a mile away? No, you gotta get up close like this - badda-bing! - you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit. C'mere.

[Kisses Michael on the head]

Sonny: You're taking this very personal. Tom, this is business and this man is taking it very, very personal.

Tom Hagen: I'm an attorney for the Corleone family. These men are private detectives hired to protect Vito Corleone. They are licensed to carry firearms. If you interfere you'll have to appear before a judge in the morning and show cause.

Tom Hagen: The Senator called, he apologized for not coming but said that you would understand; also some of the judges. They've all sent gifts.

[raises his glass to the Don]

Tom Hagen: Salut.

[Both men are suiddenly startled by a huge roaring cheer]

Don Corleone: What is that, outside?

[Both look out the window and see famous singer Johnny Fontane has arrived]

Don Corleone: He came all the way from California to the wedding. i told you he was gonna come!

Tom Hagen: It's been two years. He's probably in trouble again.

Don Corleone: He is a good godson.

[Tom Hagen goes Christmas shopping, and meets Sollozzo]

Sollozzo: I want to talk to you.

Tom Hagen: [stepping aside] I haven't got time...

Sollozzo: Make time, Consigliore!

[Hagen finds himself trapped between Sollozzo and a hood]

Sollozzo: What are you worried about? If I wanted to kill you you'd be dead already. Get in.

[a car drives up]

Tom Hagen: You know how they're going to come at you?

Michael: They want to arrange a meeting between me and Barzini. On Tessio's ground. Where I'll be safe.

[Hagen is silent for a long moment]

Tom Hagen: Tessio. I always thought it would be Clemenza.

Michael: It's the smart move. Tessio was always smarter.

Tom Hagen: Maybe we shouldn't get Mike mixed up in this too directly...

Tom Hagen: When a plot against the Emperor failed... the plotters were always given a chance... to let their families keep their fortunes. Right?

Frank Pentangeli: Yeah, but only the rich guys, Tom. The little guys got knocked off and all their estates went to the Emperors. Unless they went home and killed themselves, then nothing happened. And the families... the families were taken care of.

Tom Hagen: That was a good break. A nice deal.

Frank Pentangeli: Yeah... They went home... and sat in a hot bath... opened up their veins... and bled to death... and sometimes they had a little party before they did it.

Michael: Was it a boy?

Tom Hagen: Mikey, after three and a half months...

Michael: WHY CAN'T YOU GIVE ME A STRAIGHT ANSWER ANY MORE? WAS IT A BOY?

[last lines]

[flashback - Don Vito Corleone's birthday in 1941]

Fredo Corleone, Tom Hagen, Santino, Connie, Salvatore "Sally" Tessio, Theresa Hagen, Carlo Rizzi: Surprise!

[singing]

Fredo Corleone, Tom Hagen, Santino, Connie, Salvatore "Sally" Tessio, Theresa Hagen, Carlo Rizzi: For he's a jolly good fellow/For he's a jolly good fellow/For he's a jolly good fellow/ Which nobody can deny...

Tom Hagen: Why do you hurt me, Michael? I've always been loyal to you.

Al Neri: Our friend and associate Hyman Roth is in the news. The High Court of Israel turned down his request to live there as a returning Jew. He landed in Buenos Aires last night offering a "gift" of a million dollars if they'd let him stay. They said no. His passport's been invalidated, except for his return trip to the States.

Tom Hagen: He'll try Panama next.

Michael Corleone: Panama won't take him. Not for a million, not for ten million.

Tom Hagen: It would be like trying to kill the President; there's no way we can get to him.

Michael Corleone: Tom, you know you surprise me. If anything in this life is certain - if history has taught us anything - it's that you can kill *anybody*.