Motherhood changes everything.
Adriana Trigiani
The 'Story of Silent Night', which was given to me one Christmas when I was six - it was the story of a down and out composer who had no ideas left, and it was Christmas, and he came up with the hymn 'Silent Night.'
There is no one on earth who knew you from the day you were born; who knew why you cried, or when you'd had enough food; who knew exactly what to say when you were hurting; and who encouraged you to grow a good heart. When that layer goes, whatever is left of your childhood goes with her.
I have held the following jobs: office temp, ticket seller in movie theatre, cook in restaurant, nanny, and phone installer at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
Be in community, go out to dinner together, do things together. We lose that, we lose a lot. It's important to come together.
Everything I've done in my life has been dictated by the fact that I like to be home at night and in bed.
No one worries about you like your mother, and when she is gone, the world seems unsafe, things that happen unwieldy. You cannot turn to her anymore, and it changes your life forever.
When I was young, I was stupid, and I thought maybe I would write the fancy stuff.
You never know when some small thing will lead to a big idea. Travel is very inspirational - but it's in the ordinary that I find my themes of love and work and family.
I'm always fascinated by why a person becomes a writer.
I'm a dramatist, so I really always wrote and directed at the same time because when I wrote something, I always put it on its feet. So I'm in love with actors; I always loved actors.
And so, when I was a young writer I always worked hard on imagery, and I knew that the roots of imagery were the senses - and that if my readers could feel, taste and see what I was talking about, I would be able to tell them a story.
Everything has to be clean and orderly when I sit down to write. I have candles going, and small objects that remind me of what I am working on, or bring me into the world of the character.
I think the book business is really sitting on the greatest moment in the history of time. We are providing the stories to the hungry public. We have more avenues to do it than ever before.
I don't like any art form barraged in violence or hurt.
I fell in love with reading when I was allowed to choose whatever books I wanted to check out of the library. I was around nine years old when I began choosing my own books in earnest.
Mostly I sit alone in a room and cry and do my job - so when they let me out of my cave to go on tour, I really listen to my readers.
Koverman is one of my favorite Hollywood characters because she was the brains of MGM, and not many people know about her.
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 understand how a first impression is often just that: a quick snapshot that, on its own merit, is meaningless.
I come from hardworking, determined people on both sides of my family... the kind who live with a hard reality from which much strength comes.
I have a new book coming out, so I do movie, book, movie, book, movie, book, every place we go.
I'm directing and writing the 'Big Stone Gap' movie.
I don't settle in any other area of my life when it comes to excellence, so why should I lower my standards when it comes to boys?
Writing is writing. It's an abiding, wonderful talent, craft, gift that stays with you your whole life. And you can go in different forms, and you can try them. Look at me: I'm writing novels because I found something I love because I tried it.
Food is so important - it sustains us, it provides a social focal point, and it is fun. I cannot unravel the difference between love in my family and the preparation of food because they are so closely woven.
Book clubs are the best thing that has happened to the world of publishing.
But the most precious research to me came from the paperwork filed on behalf of my grandparents and great-grandfather. The ship's manifest showed that they could read and write. I am still emotional when I look at those boxes checked yes.
I love rhinestones, faux jewelry.
I am in total silence when I write - I don't even like the sound of the dryer going - I like the quiet.
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.
I care what my reader thinks. There is no fancy recommendation you can give me that would matter to me as much as Mary Jane from Youngstown writing me a letter. There is not one. Don't need it, don't want it, don't require it, does not fill up my soul. It's about her, not about the rest of it.
I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries.
If there is one thing I hope my books do always and forever, it's that they honor working people.
I'm very organized - and the best thing - when you love your work, you don't mind putting in 15 hour days. It's joyful.
We have a million ways to get ahold of people, and we're the loneliest we've ever been.
I never knew anybody who didn't want to have a great love in their lives and to make a family.
Work and love - this is interesting to me.
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.
I always think the most important thing for a writer is a deadline, and it's the same with a house. They say you shouldn't make an emotional decision with a house, but I think it is the only decision you can make.
I get very attached to places.
I have to work hard. I'm not naturally great at anything. I have to work really, really hard.
One of the big problems we had was, 'Where are we going to put the trailer?' So now they've found places - they did 'A Walk in the Woods,' they put it with that movie 'War Room,' they put it with 'Ricki and the Flash.'
I live in the greatest city in the world for research.
The Calandra Institute, the Metropolitan Opera Archives, the library at Lincoln Center, and the Fashion Institute of Technology were helpful and key to piecing together what life must have been like at the turn of the last century.
I fell in love with reading when I was allowed to choose whatever books I wanted to check out of the library.
Comedy is a reaction to the world, and I think it really helps to be an outsider. I've always been very interested in people's behavior, to the point of being obsessed - seeing what people needed and reading them, I think that's the backbone of comedy.
You don't get everything you want. That doesn't exist in this realm.
I can't take just one book with me anywhere.
I don't leave the house without a book, and I never watch television without one, either.
