Quotes from Edie Falco

Is it harder having kids and working? It definitely is, but the payoff is you get to go home to your kids, and it all balances out. And I know I'm a better mother when I'm engaged in something outside of the house.

I'm just not one of those people who thought having biological children was that important, to me it was more about wanting to raise a child.

I'm an old-school, embarrassing Joni Mitchell fan. Her music made a hook in my soul and hasn't let go for all these years. I even sing her songs as lullabies to my kids.

There's a little good and bad in everyone. Everybody I've ever loved is very complicated.

I do not cook.

But I've always been hard to cast, I've never been an ingenue, I've never been the romantic lead. I'm an actor; give me the script and I do what I do and hope it's good.

I'm not sad about any of my life. It's so unconventional. It doesn't look anything like I thought it would.

Obviously, it wasn't meant for me to die of cancer at 40. Every day my life surprises me, just like my cancer diagnosis surprised me. But you roll with it. That's our job as humans.

I think there was a time when I considered myself a work addict, but that's no longer accurate. My life has changed so dramatically over the last number of years, especially having a family now. My priorities have shifted.

It's a very complicated issue, this fame thing - I was not really cut out for it. There are some really fantastic things about it, but it's difficult for a private person like myself.

I think that you do get a little extra jolt of confidence when you win an Emmy.

I don't have examples in my life of people who are all good or bad; I have deeply loved many people who are both, and I relate to those kinds of people on a far greater level.

I was a young kid from Long Island who wanted to do something large with her life, so I can relate to that.

I've watched those shows my whole life - being on one is like a dream. It's hard to balance that dream with the fact that this is the Edie I've known my whole life.

I was able to support myself by acting alone about six years ago. Until then, I was just scraping by.

We're living in a time when parenting is not at all mirroring the way I was parented. For me, I just followed my parents around on their errands when they were busy on the phone, I was quiet. It's a different kettle of fish these days: They run the house, and you listen to their music, and you go to their appointments.

I'm not sad about any of my life. It's so unconventional. It doesn't look anything like I thought it would.

Coming home to my family afterward makes the work richer, easier and more fun.

And hey-the psychiatrist in the show is Italian also. So people are going to focus on what they want to focus on. There's not much you can do about that.

I actually washed my window once, and it fell through - it was being held together by the dirt.

We're living in a time when parenting is not at all mirroring the way I was parented. For me, I just followed my parents around on their errands; when they were busy on the phone, I was quiet. It's a different kettle of fish these days: They run the house, and you listen to their music, and you go to their appointments.

One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people.

I really am profoundly grateful just in general in my life. I've had an embarrassing amount of good fortune.

The second you are handed a newborn it is yours. It doesn't matter what body it came out of. I've never felt more strongly about anything in my life.