- Artie Bottolota Sr.: I do not give a shit if you knock over Fort Knox. If I don't get my two million back before the week's out, your testicles are gonna be jammed in your eye sockets. You get that? In you're fucking eye sockets!
- Buck: You're gonna bring down Hollywood Nicky?
- Carlito Brigante: Look, he's got three tones of pure uncut heroin stashed in his safe house.
- Rocco: Charlie, nobody knows where that is.
- Carlito Brigante: I do.
- Carlito Brigante: Now, this is historical. A Puerto Rican, a brother, an Italian, all bunking together in the joint.
- Rocco: It went good. He likes you guys. He's getting us ten kilos on consignment. We're in business.
- Carlito Brigante: I'm Carlito Brigante. You ever heard of me? Then you know I ain't no fucking dry cleaner. Now, you can leave like you came in. Or you can go in the trunk of my car. All up to you. Comprende?
- Carlito Brigante: That kind of macho shit don't fly with what we got here. We can't go to war with this guy.
- Artie Bottolota Sr.: Maybe you was in on it, maybe you wasn't. But Rocco brought you around us, and then the both of you brought those fucking niggers around. So you're responsible. I'm putting Nacho Reyes on you. Worked with me in Cuba. Did more hits than all my guys together. I'm giving him contracts on you, Rocco, and Earl. And the only way they're gonna be cancelled is if I find three dead niggers on my doorstep. And my two million back in my pocket.
- Carlito Brigante: You know, Nicky, I'd never bother you with something like this, but if we don't find them cats soon, those crazy-ass Italians are gonna come over and start shooting up the black side of Harlem.
- Hollywood Nicky: [laughs] Carlito. If you don't find the motherfucker's that snatched Arties kid, you the one that's getting shot up.
- Carlito Brigante: Yeah, well, that too.
- Hollywood Nicky: And as far as them Italians coming my way, if one of them even set foot across Lenox Avenue, the next time you gonna see a live guinea is again is on the leaning tower of Pisa. Now I believe I've been very nice about this situation. I let you and them set up across town from me.
- Carlito Brigante: I appreciate that.
- Hollywood Nicky: Cause one day, you and them wal-yos, you're gonna run out of dope. And all them junkie motherfucker's you all done raised gonna come scurrying over to me like a bunch of starved cockroaches.
- Carlito Brigante: If we run out of dope, you run out of dope too, Nicky.
- Hollywood Nicky: I got me a safe house with over three tones of pure Persian. That's enough to keep this city nodding for the next six months.
- Nacho Reyes: Time to drop off these guys to Artie, first. You want to see something nice, Carlito?
- [handing him several bags of mutilated corpse]
- Nacho Reyes: Here's you guy. Here's your guy too. Carlito, take your guy. Wait up. Here's some more of your guy.
- Artie Jr.: You two faggots work for us. Now, get the spic squad in gear and start moving all that shit
- [first lines]
- Carlito Brigante: Sooner or later, a thug will tell his tale. We all want to go on record. So let's hear it for all the hoods. The Jews out of Brownsville, the blacks on Lennox Avenue, the Italians from Mulberry Street, the Irish in Hell's Kitchen. Like that. Meanwhile, Puerto Rican's been getting jammed since the fortys, and ain't nobody said nothing. Well, I'm gonna lay it on you one time, for the record. My people. They hit New York and filed into the roach stables in Spanish Harlem and the South Bronx. They sat behind the sewing machines, stood behind the steam tables and marched behind the brooms. In other words, they busted their ass. How did I survive growing up? Hustling, thieving, break-in's. Anything for dollars in them days. This here is the story of East Harlem. Blacks on one side, Italians on the other, and Puerto Ricans stuck right there in the middle. And any way you cross the line could get your ass killed!
- [gun fires]
- Carlito Brigante: For thirty years, Italians, Puerto Ricans, and Blacks all in a three-sided war. No winners but the funeral parlours. And then one day the Italians should up with the dope. That's what made the peace, the heroin business. I hit twenty one in the Elmira Pen, upstate in New York. First whiff of country air for this Puerto Rican.
- Carlito Brigante: Earl was the brains. One of the top numbers guys in Harlem. Inside or out, nothing ever went down without discussing it with Earl. Rocco had all the connections. He was mobbed up with the Pleasant Avenue crew. Rocco didn't talk like no wiseguy. He spoke nice and soft. Dignified.
- Rocco: Want to start making some real money, Charlie?
- Carlito Brigante: Like, who don't?
- Earl: Heroin's taking over.
- Rocco: My people, they have a very dependable supply line.
- Earl: The Italians see, they ain't going to 125th Street to deal with the brothers, and they ain't going West to deal with the Puerto Ricans. They need distributors in those neighbourhoods. Guys with heart. Guys with brains. Stand up motherfuckers.
- Rocco: You can be a part of this Charlie, or you can keep hustling quarters the rest of your life.
- Earl: Think about it.
- Rocco: Artie's really looking forward to meeting you guys. Artie, I'd like to introduce you to my friends. This is Carlito and this is Earl.
- Hollywood Nicky: What's the first rule in life? What's the first rule in life above all others? What is the first commandment the Lord God gave us? Don't mess with Hoppy. Just don't mess with him. May I please have a cream soda?
- Carlito Brigante: Let me just give you a ride home.
- Leticia: I like to take the train.
- Carlito Brigante: No, tonight you're getting a ride.
- Leticia: No, thank you.
- Carlito Brigante: I'm only letting you out of here, if you have dinner with me. Otherwise, I'm coming into the house, I'm gonna wake everybody up, introduce myself, maybe uh make some coffee.
- Leticia: I'm off Thursday.
- Earl: Brother, relax. You come in next week, we'll work something out.
- Hollywood Nicky: First of all, I ain't your motherfucking brother. And there ain't gonna be no next week unless we work this shit out now. Right now.
- Earl: Listen do me a favor with Reggie. Spend a little time with him. He ain't listening to me, I'm his brother. You hang out with him, you become his friend, maybe something rubs off. Teach him how to dress right, you know, command some respect. Maybe then he can work with me. Take over.
- Reggie: There ain't gonna be no hustlers when the Revolution comes. They all gonna get lined up against the wall with all the other oppressors.
- Sigfredo: I know who you are, Carlito Brigante. You think you own this neighborhood. And all the hard working people, they belong to you, but no. All you, all you own is the junkies.
- Carlito Brigante: You got it all wrong, Sigfredo.
- Sigfredo: You get out of here, you hear me? You stay away from my sister. You stay away from my family! You understand me?
- Reggie: Why don't you go fuck your dead mother?
- Carlito Brigante: Artie.
- [Reggie spits on Artie's face]
- Carlito Brigante: Fuck.
- Artie Jr.: Motherfucker!
- Carlito Brigante: For thirty years, man, we've been at war in Harlem. Blacks, Ricans, and Italians. So, here, me, Rocco and Earl put something together, and you want to mess it all up? That ain't right.
- Reggie: What do you think you're doing? Putting up schools and nursing homes? You motherfucker's are heroin dealers.
- Artie Jr.: Oh, look who's here? Carlito, you buy us all those drinks. You ain't got to leave out the back door.
- Carlito Brigante: Reggie fucked up, alright. I apologize.
- Artie Jr.: You ain't got to answer to us. He does.
- Earl: And I wanna propose another toast to my brothers of other colors, from other mothers. My two best frends in the whole world, Rocco, Carlito, I love you and I'm gonna miss you. I'm gonna miss all of you guys.
- Carlito Brigante: [to Sigfredo] Everyday, I want you to remember one thing. You still alive 'cause of me.
- Detective: You are gonna hand us everybody. Otherwise, you're going down with them.
- Reggie: Fuck you, Carlito. You said next time you see me gonna be bad. Well, you shouldn't have come looking then, because you dying first.
- Nacho Reyes: Carlito, Carlito. You listen to Nacho. This loyalty that you have for your friends, it's rare in this business. But someday, it's gonna get you killed.