It costs money to have a soul. ibid.
You work your side of the street and I’ll work mine. ibid. Bullitt to politician
I thought I knew you. But I’m not so sure any more. Do you let anything reach you? I mean, really reach you. Or are you so used to it by now that nothing really touches you. You’re living in a sewer, Frank. Day after day ... Living with violence and death. How can you be part of it without becoming more and more callous? Your world is so far from the one I know. What will happen to us in time? ibid. her to him
I swore if I made it home I’d never follow orders again. I left a soldier and came home an outlaw. I lived one robbery to the next. Live by Night 2016 starring Ben Affleck & Elle Fanning & Massi Furlan & Remo Girone & Brendan Gleeson & Robert Glenister & Matthew Maher & Chris Messina & Sienna Miller & Miguel Pimenthal & Zoe Saldana & Chris Cooper et al, director Ben Affleck, opening commentary
There was a war going on over rum. Albert White ran the Irish mob and Maso Pescatore ran the Italians. It was tit for tat. The deadliest year in the history of Boston. ibid.
So it no longer matters so much what you want. You’re in this life. And it can only end two ways. ibid. Pescatore
I realised it’s not enough to break the rules: you have to be strong enough to make your own. ibid. Joe
I got nothing against noble men. They just rarely live past forty. ibid.
We’re not the only smart guys in the world. Killing Them Softly 2012 starring Brad Pitt & Scoot McNairy & Ben Mendelsohn & Richard Jenkins & James Gandolfini & Ray Liotta & Sam Shepard & Vincent Curatola & Max Casella & Trevor Long et al, director Andrew Dominik, Squirrel
You ever killed anyone? It can get touchy feely … I like to kill them softly, from a distance. ibid. Pitt
Where have you been? By the Gun 2014 starring Ben Barnes & Harvey Keitel & Leighton Meester & Slaine & Ritchie Coster & Toby Jones & Kenny Wormald & Paul Ben-Victor et al, director James Mottern, opening line
You really want to associate with people like that? He came out of his mother’s ass. ibid. old dude to Nick
The whole fucking world – that’s my man-cave. ibid. Mafia dude
You’re a made man. Where are your friends now? ibid. fat bloke to Nick
I want a divorce! Married to the Mob 1988 starring Michelle Pfeiffer & Matthew Modine & Dean Stockwell & Mercedes Ruehl & Paul Lazar & Alec Baldwin & Joan Cusack & Ellen Folley & Oliver Platt et al, director Jonathan Demme, her to him
It’s checkout time, Tony. ibid. Frankie
We are your friends, Angela. Whether you like it or not. ibid. Mob chick
We’re still your Family. We always will be. ibid. Frankie to Angela
You people are just like the Mob. ibid. Angela to rozzers
The Mob is run by murdering thieving lying cheating psychopaths; we work for the president of the United States of America. ibid. rozzer
In the 1960s the history of the Mafia changed for ever when the Sicilian Mob began flooding the United States with … heroin: heroin would turn the Mafia into a global organisation and make them more money than they had ever made before; but it would also sow the seeds of their own destruction. Inside the Mafia: Going Global
Shutting down the French Connection was indirectly opening the door to … the Sicilian Mafia. ibid.
Galante: a heroin man … multi-billion-dollar profits and unparalleled violence. In the ’70s the Bonanno family was known as … the heroin family. ibid.
The Sicilians set up a sophisticated smuggling system … Toto Riina … his factories were producing ton after ton of pure heroin. ibid.
The Sicilians had turned on Galante. ibid.
Henry Hill regularly used Pizza restaurants for his heroin drop-offs. ibid.
Upstate New York, November 1957: In the sleepy town of Appalachia an extraordinary meeting was taking place … A summit meeting of the entire leadership of the American Mafia. In fact until that moment many denied the Mafia even existed. Inside the Mafia: Mafia? What Mafia?
In Sicily all Mafiosi had to take a sacred blood oath that they would never betray the organisation … The novice was sworn in through a quasi-religious ceremony and became a so-called man of honour. The American Mafia followed exactly the same initiation ceremony. ibid.
The Commission: a Mafia board of directors made up of the bosses of the five New York families plus those of Chicago and Buffalo. ibid.
Hoover had almost no Italian-American agents who would infiltrate the Mob. ibid.
In America the subject of drugs continued to dominate Mafia discussions. ibid.
They were two very different Godfathers separated by 4,000 miles of ocean. John Gotti was the Teflon don, a New York mobster who adored public attention and defied lawmen to get him. Toto Riina was a peasant from rural Sicily, a boss who operated in the shadows. In the late ’80s and early ’90s it required two very different approaches to bring them to justice. Inside the Mafia: The Godfathers, National Geographic 2005
Gotti would have to eliminate Costellano to become boss. But Gotti was not the only one who wanted him out of the way. ibid.
Gotti: Each time the Gambino boss got off. Bribery and intimidation of witnesses saw to that. The nickname the Teflon Don was born. ibid.
Gravano would be the final nail in Gotti’s coffin. ibid.
It was perhaps the most lucrative criminal racket in history. Between 1979 and 1984 the Sicilian Mafia smuggled nearly two billion dollars’ worth of heroin into the US. It made mobsters on both sides of the Atlantic rich. It also led to war. In Sicily rival bosses fought for control of the heroin-trafficking empire. The terror this war unleashed drove one Godfather to break omerta, the Mafia’s sacred code of silence. His act of betrayal would lead to a transatlantic assault on the Mafia and make the first serious dent in their worldwide power. Heroin was flooding into the United States in the late 1970s. Smuggled inside Italian food products and distributed through Pizzarias owned by the Sicilian Mafia. It was known as the Pizza Connection. The US faced an epidemic of heroin addiction. But for American gangstas heroin meant money. And lots of it. Inside the Mafia: The Great Betrayal
Newspapers were awash with sensational details of Italian crime families. The Italian Americans: La Famiglia 1890-1910, PBS 2014
At the dawn of the twentieth century over four million Italians arrived in America ... Those who remained struggled to find their place in the American mainstream. ibid.
By 1870, after only a decade of Italian unification, the economic conditions in the south forced many southern Italians to flee their villages in search of work in America. ibid.
The word Mafia began to crop up in newspapers across the country. ibid.
Yes him! Oh my God look at me. Blood Vows: The Story of a Mafia Wife 1987 starring Melissa Gilbert & Joe Penny & Eileen Brennan & Anthony Franciosa & Talia Shire & Carmine Caridi & Ron Karabatsos & John Aprea & Rhoda Gemignani et al, director Phil Wendkos, bird to bird, gangsta enters
On May 25th 1988 Richard Kuklinski was convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. This ended 30 years of cold-blooded killing by a master criminal police called The Iceman. The Iceman: Confessions of a Mafia Hitman
‘He murdered by guns, he murdered by strangulation, he murdered by putting poison on victims’ food, he did all of this at the same time while exhibiting a normal placid family existence.’ ibid. rozzer
‘An approximate guess … more than a hundred.’ ibid. Richard
‘It doesn’t bother me at all.’ ibid.
‘Nothing haunts me.’ ibid.
He and Barbara had three children. But just with an eighth grade education to only get low-paying jobs. ibid.
Kuklinski was the perfect enforcer. He was brutal and he knew how to intimidate. ibid.
Kuklinski kept his criminal life secret from his family and neighbours. ibid.
Richard Kuklinski became the head of his own crime ring. He developed new ways to profit from murder. ibid.
By the 1980s Kuklinski was involved in narcotics, pornography, arms dealing, money laundering, hijacking and contract killing on a world-wide basis. He was also pressing 50 and getting tired. He started to make mistakes. ibid.