I understand how a first impression is often just that: a quick snapshot that, on its own merit, is meaningless.
— Adriana Trigiani
We hang out, we help one another, we tell one another our worst fears and biggest secrets, and then, just like real sisters, we listen and don't judge.
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?
On the cover of 'All the Stars' is a red grosgrain ribbon. It's Loos's ribbon. Ageless, fabulous Loos - she tricked the very people who would have cast her aside like an old shoe if they knew the truth.
'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 can't take just one book with me anywhere.
You don't get everything you want. That doesn't exist in this realm.
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.
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.'
Be in community, go out to dinner together, do things together. We lose that, we lose a lot. It's important to come together.
I'm directing and writing the 'Big Stone Gap' movie.
Everything I've done in my life has been dictated by the fact that I like to be home at night and in bed.
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.
We have a million ways to get ahold of people, and we're the loneliest we've ever been.
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 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.
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.
Shoemakers and tanners form a symbiotic relationship out of necessity. One provides the leather while the other whips it into a glorious creation.
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.
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.'
'All the Stars in the Heavens' takes place during the golden age of Hollywood, around an imagined story about Loretta Young; Clark Gable; Alda, a young woman with a secret who is preparing to become a nun but is cast out of her convent; and the scenic artist she meets on the set of 'The Call of the Wild.' It's a big, lush historical novel.
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.'
I don't like any art form barraged in violence or hurt.
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 live in the greatest city in the world for research.
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.
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 have to work hard. I'm not naturally great at anything. I have to work really, really hard.
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.
Work and love - this is interesting to me.
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.
I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries.
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 am in total silence when I write - I don't even like the sound of the dryer going - I like the quiet.
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.
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.
Koverman is one of my favorite Hollywood characters because she was the brains of MGM, and not many people know about her.
I write novels about women, except for one: 'Rococo', about a man, a New Jersey decorator. But even that book had a woman on the cover.
I don't leave the house without a book, and I never watch television without one, either.
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 fell in love with reading when I was allowed to choose whatever books I wanted to check out of the library.
I'm always fascinated by why a person becomes a writer.
I have a new book coming out, so I do movie, book, movie, book, movie, book, every place we go.
When I was young, I was stupid, and I thought maybe I would write the fancy stuff.
I get very attached to places.
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 never knew anybody who didn't want to have a great love in their lives and to make a family.
If there is one thing I hope my books do always and forever, it's that they honor working people.
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.
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.
