Quotes from Adriana Trigiani

none of us are good enough for Alfred

Folks lighten up their lives when they're about to make a move.

As a solider, Ciro had learned that good men can't fix what evil men are intent on destroying. He had learned to choose what was worth holding on to, and what was worth fighting for. Every man had to decide that for himself, and some never did. He had not survived the Great War to return home the same man.

I stay on terra firma under an umbrella with a good book. That's my idea of the shore.

What's a true Italian?" "He loved his family and he loved beauty. For a true Italian, those are the only two things that matter, because in the end that's what sustains you.

Nationalism had now replaced neighborliness.

Though this is my first trip to the United Kingdom, I am a proud Anglophile. I admire the practical temperament of the people. I love the artful details of daily life: a hand-stitched tea cozy in the shape of a Victorian mansion, the Wellie boots, the sheep's wool stockings, and the best tailors in the world.

I listen while my brothers-in-law and father talk college football, as always, the chatter loops around to Notre Dame, and will the Fighting Irish place in the polls this year. The number of the year may change, the children may get older, and we may add in a new baby or spouse here and there, but every autumn, and everything Thanksgiving, the talk turns to Notre Dame football and will they or won't they.

But more important than all these lovely features of gracious living was the camaraderie of the young residents, who aspired to better lives on the wings of their talent and creativity.

Nothing like the theater to bring out the claws and pepper in people.

Grief doesn't hit and run; it stays. and sometimes for a very long time.

There was no comfort in happy memories; they just made it all seem worse.

Who's the artist? My favorite. She pauses. Unknown. Edydie sits cross-legged on the couch. There is something so pure about an artist creating something for the sheer joy of it, then sharing it with people and claiming no credit. To me that's the height of romance.

I would look back on my parents' generosity and understand it one day. There isn't anything a parent won't do for her child. There is no limit on love.

If you look around to find meaning in everything that happens, you will end up disappointed. Sometimes there aren't reasons behind the terrible things that go on.

When you lose someone, they take a bigger place in your heart, not a smaller one. Every day it grows, because you don't stop loving them. You wish you could talk to them. You need their advice. But life doesn't always give us what we need, and it's difficult. It is for me, anyway.

Tenderness and shame would remain closely tied in Matelda's heart until she learned the combination blocked her ability to truly love.

you must dig constantly for meaning in the sorrow of this life, and that this sorrow must galvanize you, not define you.

Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.

May God bless you and give you what you need because what you want will get you in trouble.

She thought about Ciro and how she'd loved him from the first moment she saw him, and how tradition, properly cared for, nurtured, honored, and respected, continues to feed the soul of a family. Antonio

But this is too strange. In this sea of coincidences, I am beginning to understand that we don't control our destinies; they are mapped out for us as surely as we are born.

Ciro carried himself like a general in full regalia, when in fact he wore secondhand clothes from the donation bin.

The terrible things that happen to us in this life never make any sense when we're in the middle of them, floundering, no end in sight.