How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Goodfellas.
Quote #4
KAREN: One night, Bobby Vinton sent us champagne. There was nothing like it. I didn't think there was anything strange in any of this. You know, a 21-year-old kid 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 it.
He was really nice? Jeez, Karen. Henry's power is intoxicating to Karen and blinds her to all of the bad stuff he's getting up to when they're not sipping bubbly.
Quote #5
KAREN: I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn't. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on.
That's more like it. Here, Karen finally acknowledges that her powerful boyfriend isn't an ordinary—or law-abiding—guy. Does that worry her? Nope. Quite the opposite, in fact. No doubt Karen has been perusing the works of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who wrote that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." (Source)
Quote #6
HENRY: You know, when you think of prison, you get pictures in your mind of all those old movies with rows and rows of guys behind bars. But it wasn't like that for wiseguys … I mean, everybody else in the joint was doing real time, mixed together, living like pigs, but we lived alone. We owned the joint.
Even behind bars, the wiseguys grease the wheels with bribes. While their power in the outside world is tied up, inside the joint, they can still get away with almost anything, except a file hidden in a salami.