Retribution Quotes

On his work with A Minor Consideration: "People on the `outside,` people who have not lived the life...`civilians` as we call them...are not equipped to deal with the masterful deceptions of former kid stars. For God`s sake, when you don`t know what to do with a former child star, call on the only group of people who DO know. We never say, `I told you so.` We never seek retribution. We do not judge lest we be judged. We simply help."

(on The Godfather: Part III (1990)) You know what the problem with that film is? The real problem? Nobody wants to see Michael have retribution and feel guilty. That`s not who he is. In the other scripts, in Michael`s mind he is avenging his family and saving them. Michael never thinks of himself as a gangster - not as a child, not while he is one and not afterward. That is not the image he has of himself. He`s not a part of the Goodfellas (1990) thing. Michael has this code; he lives by something that makes audiences respond. But once he goes away from that and starts crying over coffins, making confessions and feeling remorse, it isn`t right. I applaud (Francis Ford Coppola) for trying to get to that, but Michael is so frozen in that image. There is in him a deep feeling of having betrayed his mother by killing his brother. That was a mistake. And we are ruled by these mistakes in life as time goes on. He was wrong. Like in Scarface (1983) when Tony kills Manny - that is wrong, and he pays for it. And in his way, Michael pays for it.

You know what the problem with that film is? The real problem? Nobody wants to see Michael have retribution and feel guilty. That`s not who he is. In the other scripts, in Michael`s mind he is avenging his family and saving them. Michael never thinks of himself as a gangster - not as a child, not while he is one and not afterward. That is not the image he has of himself. He`s not a part of the GoodFellas thing. Michael has this code; he lives by something that makes audiences respond. But once he goes away from that and starts crying over coffins, making confessions and feeling remorse, it isn`t right. I applaud Francis Coppola for trying to get to that, but Michael is so frozen in that image. There is in him a deep feeling of having betrayed his mother by killing his brother. That was a mistake. And we are ruled by these mistakes in life as time goes on. He was wrong. Like in Scarface when Tony kills Manny - that is wrong, and he pays for it. And in his way, Michael pays for it. - On _Godfather: Part III, The (1990)_

AIDS is an absolutely tragic disease. The argument about AIDS` being some kind of divine retribution is crap.

Artists speak the truth to the public without fear of retribution or damage to their careers.

If George W. Bush is given a second term, and retains a Republican Congress and a compliant federal judiciary, he and his allies are likely to embark on a campaign of political retribution the likes of which we haven`t seen since Richard Nixon.

Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.

It was time in America for African Americans to take retribution for the legal crimes that had been committed against them for almost three centuries.