Quotes from Adriana Trigiani

I don't use a crap camera, I don't eat junk, and I'm not going to a dance where the boys are bores

For a woman, love is the highest dream, and if a man promises to build a ladder tall enough to reach it, she believes him, hikes up her skirt, and follows him to the stars.

Our faces will become works of art that our grandchildren will treasure.

I used to walk to Altman's on Saturdays for lunch at the Charleston Garden, which had a coconut cake that is still my favorite food in the world.

If a man walks in beauty, he will create, and when he creates, he prospers.

All you needed is what every girl needs, a good friend. Someone to talk to, to share with, to run things by.

It's the secret to happiness, you know. Only take what you need.

If there is one thing I hope my books do always and forever, its that they honor working people.

I don't leave the house without a book, and I never watch television without one, either.

I care about the box office, so that's why I go from town to town: because I want people to see it. I would give it for free; I just want those houses full of people watching it.

I get very attached to places.

Shoemakers and tanners form a symbiotic relationship out of necessity. One provides the leather while the other whips it into a glorious creation.

And when you clear away the cobwebs of the description of every job in the world, at the bottom of that job is service. It's service. And I took that ethic and applied it to my writing craft.

Everything I've done in my life has been dictated by the fact that I like to be home at night and in bed.

I will probably always cry myself to sleep, but knowing this, someday the tears won't be sad, or filled with regret. Maybe they will be joyful

This is one of those times when explaining a feeling cannot measure up to actually having the feeling

This is where men and women are different, we can put aside petty competition for relationships - they can't. It interferes.

It's the secret to happiness, you know. Only take what you need.

Maybe a first love exists to reaffirm the best parts of yourself, the choices you made when you didn't worry about the consequences. Maybe a first love exists to remind you to be brave in the moment, to stand up for your feelings, instead of shrinking back in the face of potential loneliness.

The good things that happen to us were meant to happen, and the bad things that happen are lessons meant to teach us to be better.

Take nothing and no one for granted. Time used to be my friend, and now it's a skittish acquaintance at best. Let life unfold, say what you mean. You can't always think about what you've lost, or what you don't have, or what you didn't get. Because when you do that, you're missing out on the now. You can't know if you'll be here tomorrow or a year from now.

Giacomina had taught her daughter that you must dig constantly for meaning in the sorrow of this life, and that this sorrow must galvanize you, not define you.

Having a purpose is the little secret of the nonpretties. Something to do always beats something to look at.

It [money] doesn't have anything have anything to do with the magnificence of a person. It doesn't. What matters is what you make. Whether it's a cake for bingo night or a costume for a saint or a wall of water--whatever you pour into this life is what makes you rich.