Quotes / The Mob Boss Is Scarier

Fiction

"Keaton always said, 'I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of Him.' Well, I do believe in God... and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Söze."

— Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects

One takes cyanide, another would have let her arm be broken. Neither would talk. Who puts that scare into people?

— James Bond, Dr. No

Yeah, the guy peed himself. Seriously. The Santanas got more "shock n' awe" going on there than we ever could. No use playing The Weakest Link here.

— Danny, Blue Bloods ("The Way Out")

"Screwface give me a thousand deaths worse than you. Go find him your-fucking-self." (Jumps out window)

— Nesta, Marked for Death

"We have a saying in Sicily: I don't know anything, I didn't see anything, I wasn't there—and if I was there, I was asleep."

— Father Emilio Vittorio, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

"Anyone see what happened?"
"Of course not. They were all in the bathroom at the time."

— CSI

"I'm 47. 47 years old. Know how I stayed alive this long? All these years? Fear. The spectacle of fearsome acts. Somebody steals from me: I cut off his hands. He offends me: I cut out his tongue. He rises against me: I cut off his head. Stick it on a pike. Raise it high up so all in the streets can see. That's what preserves the order of things. Fear."

— Bill the Butcher, Gangs of New York

"Look around you: you'll see two councilmen, a union official, a couple off-duty cops, and a judge. Now, I wouldn't have a second's hesitation of blowing your head off right here and right now in front of 'em. Now, that's power you can't buy. That's the power of fear."

— Carmine Falcone, Batman Begins

Sullivan: Mr. Ryan asked me personally to make this clear to you. You give us Fontaine, and this whole filthy ring of his, and you'll be knocking back pints up at the Fighting McDonaghs. But if you prefer to play the mule, we'll treat you like a mule... Give him a taste, Patrick... [Timmy is electrocuted] Oh, what's that? Change of heart, Timmy? Timmy? Ready to talk now?

Timmy: Go on, Sullivan... go on and do your dirty! Whatever Ryan thinks he can do to me, Fontaine can do double!

— Apocalyptic Log found in BioShock

The Last Mistake was a place where the underworld of Camorr bubbled to the surface; a flat-out crook's tavern, where Right People of every sort could drink and speak freely of their business, where respectable citizens stood out like serpents in a nursery and were quickly escorted out the door by mean-looking, thick-armed men with very small imaginations.

Here entire gangs would come to drink and arrange jobs and just show themselves off. In their cups, men would argue loudly about the best way to strangle someone from behind, and the best sorts of poisons to use in wine or food. They would openly proclaim the folly of the duke's court, or his taxation schemes, or his diplomatic arrangements with the other cities of the Iron Sea. They would refight entire battles with dice and fragments of chicken bones as their armies, loudly announcing how they would have turned left when Duke Nicovante had gone right, how they would have stood fast when the five thousand blackened iron spears of the Mad Count's Rebellion had come surging down Godsgate Hill toward them.

But not one of them, no matter how far doused in liquor or Gaze of the strange narcotic powders of Jerem—no matter what feats of generalship or statecraft he credited himself with the foresight to bring off—would dare suggest to Capa Vencarlo Barsavi that he should ever change so much as a single button on his waistcoat.

— The Lies of Locke Lamora

"He’s killed, intimidated or bribed half the officials from here to Chile. There’s only one law down there: Sanchez’s law."

— Felix Leiter, Licence to Kill

[While lying on top of Walter White's huge pile of money before they transport it for him]
Huell: Mexico. All's I'm sayin'.
[Beat]
Kuby: Guy hit ten guys in jail within a two-minute window. All's I'm sayin'.

— Breaking Bad

Brian Skuter: I could be in a lot of trouble if I don't tell the Judges what I've seen.
Judge Death: Whose wrath do you fear more? Mine, or the Judges'?
Brian Skuter: [ulp] Good point...

— Judge Dredd

"Oh, you're experts, I can see that. Smell an expert a mile away. (bitter laugh) Experts. Particularly YOU! Well it won't do you any good. You'll get nothing except a counter-suit in court! I've been worked over by experts before. (removes his toupee) Pulled the scalp off my head. Experts from my side of the fence. Think you can succeed where they failed?"

— Sutton, The Professionals, "Private Madness Public Danger".

Real Life

“The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.”

— Bertrand Russell

"Nobody shot me."

— Frank Gusenberg, who was shot 14 times in the Valentine's Day Massacre

"Ronnie Kray, one of the two Kray Twins who basically run organized crime in London, commits the murder he'll finally be sent away for when he walks into the Blind Beggar pub and shoots George Cornell in the head, causing a record of 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine No More' to skip endlessly on the word 'anymore.' Kray would manage to get away with this for three years by virtue of the fact that nobody was actually stupid enough to testify against a man who walked into pubs and shot people dead, this being a sort of tautological behavior. If you have the insane confidence needed to shoot someone in the head in front of numerous witnesses because you believe yourself to be untouchable, you also have the insane confidence needed to actually be untouchable."

— El Sandifer

"Do they have witness protection in Sicily? They must with Cosa Nostra and all, right? If not, the judge and the prosecutor better book some appointments for some major plastic surgery. And put their families in wigs. Nay Nay doesn’t forget and she sure as hell doesn’t forgive. Ask Cuba or that model with the eyebrows. A scratched eye ain’t shit compared to having a diamond-encrusted smartphone surgically removed from your anal cavity."

— J. Harvey, "A Particularly Brave Sicilian Judge Gave Naomi Campbell Jail Time"

"Besides Suge, three other people were shot and one is reportedly in critical condition. I would point out that, in a less ridiculous world, this post would be about the poor bastard who is at death’s door as opposed to big ole’ bullet cozy Suge. But I don’t want Suge to get out of ICU and hang my ass over a balcony."

— Michael K. on Suge Knight

"The torture was all supervised by doctors. Their role was to ensure that the person who was being tortured didn't die, because they had to be kept alive for the next stage of torture. I asked [a] lawyer at one point, 'Where are the doctors?' He said, 'They're all practicing in Santiago.' And nobody can think of doing anything about this. It's like having Josef Mengele walking around the streets. That's one aspect of it you see, the fear."

— Noam Chomsky on the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship of Chile

"I have been to Baghdad a number of times. Being in Iraq is like creeping around inside someone else’s migraine. The fear is so omnipresent you could almost eat it. No one talks."

— The BBC Correspondent John Sweeney

"The economic and business elite is just in horror. Any sign of rebellion and they’ll be brought to their knees."

— Igor Bunin on Russian President Vladimir Putin

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