Quotes from Lorraine Bracco

You know, last season I didn't do anything on the show, so I was frustrated. I mean, don't get me wrong: It's nice to get a paycheck. But if you don't really do anything it's not very satisfying.

I am the boss of me. You can't change anyone else. Women think they can. But you know what? You can't.

If I am going to get in a cab to go home, and I see a sign for an open house, I will go in. I like real estate because I am the boss.

I was so busy fighting and so busy trying to keep everything above water that I didn't realize I was spiraling downward with nowhere to go.

Everything was coming my way, but I was going down. I was painfully empty.

I was lucky to live 10 years in France, so I learned how to eat and drink there.

I never bought a stock in my life. I don't understand it. To me it is like Chinese.

You know, growing up, I lived in a neighborhood in Long Island where there was basically one black family. And I remember hearing all the parents and the kids in the neighborhood say racist things about this family.

The truth in acting is that we are all hired help. We are a commodity. There is no difference between being an actor and pork bellies.

I was jumping out of my skin. It was horrible. I was all over the place, because I'd never been in front of a live audience. That's a whole other element in the play, the audience.

It's hard to keep a play alive moment-to-moment, you know? But there's another part of it that I really love, which is that you never know.

My family was blue collar, a middle-class kind of thing. My father was born in Detroit, Italian-American. My mother is English. She acted on the stage with Diana Dors. Her parents were French.

Sometimes there's one person in the audience laughing hysterically, and it's so much fun. You end up playing the entire play to them.

I have no problem with women in the military, if that's what they want to do.

I don't think I am narcissistic. I think I have low self-esteem.

I thought I was going to be a lot more freaked out by being naked onstage. I think on film I would have been more freaked out, because film is less forgiving. But onstage it's lit so beautifully. It would make my mother look good.

I'd be like, 'You're a young, vibrant woman. Where are you?' I realized that I had been living in denial.