"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." One of the biggest criticisms leveled at Martin Scorcese is that he has a tendency to glamorize the mob. That's a dubious assertion for most of his films, but it's definitely true of Goodfellas, and the first line of the movie speaks to that. This is a man who has romanticized the idea of being a gangster since childhood. It wasn't something he fell into, it was a career that he actively sought out, one that he stuck with even after seeing all the darker aspects of the profession, and one that he experienced pretty much no negative repercussions from.