Freedom

At a meeting with the heads of crime families from all over the nation, Don Corleone coins a phrase for the underworld that Puzo says will one day be as famous as the expression "Iron Curtain" that Winston Curchill used to describe the separation between communist and democratic countries. The phrase, cosa nostra, means "our land," and the Don uses it to explain that he and his peers are free to live by their own rules, required to follow no laws. It occurs in the sentence, "We will manage our world for ourselves because it is our world, cosa nostra." In the same speech, he says, "We are all men who have refused to be fools, who have refused to be puppets dancing on a string pulled by the men on high."

It is a noble sentiment, and certainly one that gains more sympathy from the reader than...