“Do I Amuse You?” The Very Best Goodfellas Quotes

This quote is especially pertinent in the wake of the recently released The Irishman. Most of Scorsese’s gangster pictures are about the Italian Mafia, which is something the Irish can never be a part of. No matter how strong or smart you may be, there’s a ceiling on how high you can go in the Italian mob if you’re Irish.

Here is a prime example of dramatic irony. Tommy tells his Mother that he needs a knife to cut off the hooves of a deer he struck (he says that it’s a Sin if he doesn’t.) But we as the audience know that he intends to use the knife as a weapon and as a tool to dispose of Billy Batts.

Sometimes a supporting character can be explained in just a single sentence. For Jimmy Two-Times, that’s exactly the case. Jimmy Two-Times says everything twice because that’s his schtick.

How do you characterize two people without any action? One way to do so is to have a character narrate about the other. That’s exactly what Liotta’s Henry Hill does in this scene.

God Bless Tommy’s sweet Mother for cooking up dinner when her son, Henry and Jimmy show up for supplies to bury a body. It’s a strange scene yet filled with so much of that indescribable charm that Scorsese often evokes, much like the painting of two dogs and a man, “One facing East, the other facing West.”

There’s one thing you don’t want to be if you’re going to make it as a mobster and that is a wiseguy. A wiseguy is a person who thinks they’re smarter than they really are, and fails to show proper respect to their Mafia superiors. Wiseguy also happens to be the name of Pileggi’s book which is a fun allusion within the movie.

The benefits of being a prominent mobster don’t stop when you go to prison. That’s shown in Goodfellas when many of the character go to prison at the same time. Although locked up, the men still live like kings, smuggling in food, alcohol and drugs.

Henry’s wife Karen gets the short end of the stick when he goes to prison. She’s the one that has to take care of the kids both emotionally and financially. On top of that, she also feels like she needs to smuggle contraband into the prison for Henry to use.

Joe Pesci’s character Tommy is how should I say, short tempered. When he feels disrespected, he strikes back like an uncoiled viper. The man on the receiving end of Tommy’s insult should just be thankful that the bite wasn’t as venomous as a gunshot wound to the head.

Goodfellas shows the highest highs and lowest lows of gangster life. Henry Hill is a man who experienced it all, and loved every minute of it. No matter the questionable morality of his actions, Henry knew that the world was at his fingertips for two reasons: fear and money.

With this quote, made mobster Billy Batts made a critical mistake, and that is don’t mess with Tommy DeVitio. Although he says he was just “busting his balls,” Tommy didn’t see it that way. In telling Tommy to go home and get his shine box, Billy Batts signed his own death warrant.

Ah yes, the old “say the name of the movie” trick. Sometimes this will make the audience scoff and say, oh no don’t say it. But here, it actually adds some strong emotional resonance. Even though these men are heartless with their actions, they still believe in friendship.

Henry Hill always dreamed of being a gangster, but even that dream eventually turned into a nightmare. After selling out his friends and entering Witness Protection, Henry is forced to be something he never wanted to be, an average nobody.

This famous scene from Goodfellas is one of the films very best. While at a restaurant. Pesci and Liotta trade jabs at one another over an elaborate joke, prompting Pesci to ask “what’s so funny?” From there, tension builds as the audience is left questioning whether Pesci was ever joking at all.

Here’s the setup for Goodfellas: who’s Henry Hill? A gangster. What has he wanted to be his entire life? A gangster. There, that’s pretty much it. Credit to Pileg​​​​​gi and Scorsese for communicating Hill’s character in so few words.

Jimmy Conway Goodfellas Quotes

1. “Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.”

These are the two golden rules of being a mobster; don’t rat on your friends and keep your mouth shut. Jimmy Conway tells Henry these rules as his mentor, elder and superior. But in the end, the lesson is lost as Henry rats Jimmy out in an act of irony.

UP NEXT

Goodfellas Script Breakdown

Did these quotes amuse you? There's more to the Goodfellas script than these iconic quotes—the characters, locations, and drama give us a complete story and a blueprint for one of the best movies ever. 

Up Next: Goodfellas Script →