How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Goodfellas.
Quote #7
PAULIE: Listen, I ain't gonna get f***ed like Gribbs, you understand? Gribbs is 70 years old, and the f***in 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 f*** who was sneaking behind his back selling junk. I don't need that. Ain't gonna happen to me, you understand?
HENRY: Uh-huh.
PAULIE: You know that you're only out early because I got you a job. I don't need this heat, understand that?
HENRY: Uh-huh.
PAULIE: And you see anybody f***ing around with this s***, you're going to tell me, right?
HENRY: Yeah.
PAULIE: [slaps Henry] That means anybody!
HENRY: All right.
PAULIE: Yeah?
HENRY: Yeah, of course.
Paulie is getting paranoid about his power here. He has a good reason to be. Trusting Henry to drop the drugs? Big mistake. Dying powerless as a frail, irrelevant old man in the slammer scares the heck out of Paulie.
Quote #8
POLICE DETECTIVE: What, were you guys grocery shopping? What, are we gonna make a cake? Gonna make a f***ing cake? You got anything good in there, or what?
[A detective tastes the residue in a pan.]
POLICE DETECTIVE: Is it good?
[The detective nods in the affirmative.]
POLICE DETECTIVE: [to Henry, laughing] Bye, bye, dickhead. [laughing] See you in Attica, dick.
When Henry gets busted, the power changes hands abruptly and embarrassingly—which makes sense given the way the mob has continually flaunted their supremacy in the police department's collective face.
Quote #9
HENRY: See, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life. And we were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all, just for the asking. Our wives, mothers, kids, everybody rode along. I had paper bags filled with jewelry stashed in the kitchen. I had a sugar bowl full of coke next to the bed ... Anything I wanted was a phone call away … 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.
When Henry rats out his friends, he doesn't feel guilty about it. He just wants his mob hall pass back. The power was addictive.