Quotes from Adriana Trigiani

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.

I never knew anybody who didn't want to have a great love in their lives and to make a family.

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.

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 have to work hard. I'm not naturally great at anything. I have to work really, really hard.

The Hudson River lay flat and black like a lost evening glove. The clouds parted overhead as the distant moon threw a single, bright beam over lower Manhattan as though it were looking for its other half.

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.

You don't get everything you want. That doesn't exist in this realm.

Koverman is one of my favorite Hollywood characters because she was the brains of MGM, and not many people know about her.

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.

I am in total silence when I write - I don't even like the sound of the dryer going - I like the quiet.

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.

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.

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.

I'm always fascinated by why a person becomes a writer.

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.

I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries.

I live in the greatest city in the world for research.

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.

There are two phone calls parents don't ever want to get from their children. No. 1 is, 'I'm in prison. Come fetch me.' And No. 2 is, 'I've written a novel... and it's set in your hometown.'

'Off With Their Heads' by Frances Marion. I love a showbusiness autobiography - and this one resonates because it's written by one of the great Hollywood screenwriters.

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.

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.'

When people are filled to the brim with love, they are their most beautiful.