The Good Left Undone Quotes

“Listen to me. Love yourself. That’s the greatest adventure. When you love yourself, you want to find your purpose, something only you can do in the way only you can do it. Make things. Create. And if a man comes along—and believe me, he will—the relationship is already off to a good start because both of you love the same person. You. Lucky him.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“Dear family, you are the author of your destiny. In your hands is the ending of your story and the start of a new one each time a baby is born. God knows what He’s doing.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“There are many gifts a friend brings to a woman’s life. History. Empathy. Honesty. Lucky was the woman who kept a childhood friend because that friend remembered what you looked like, who you were, and your people. Lucky was the woman who had a friend from the age of ten, when girls were brave, gutsy, and full of questions and had the time and pep to seek the answers. That friend knew who you really were. That friend had seen your soul.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“Let whoever longs to attain eternal life in heaven heed these warnings: When considering the past, contemplate these things: The evil done The good left undone The time wasted”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“Let whoever longs to attain eternal life in heaven heed these warnings: When considering the past, contemplate these things: The evil done The good left undone”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“He encouraged us to reflect on the past. Make peace with it. You cannot control the evil done to you. You cannot turn back and right the good left undone.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“If you’re lucky, and you’re like me, you’ll be old much longer than you are young, and you will enjoy the wisdom that comes from experience. But you have to plan for that. That’s why it’s important to find something you love to do.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“May God bless you and give you what you need because what you want will get you in trouble.” Figliolo blessed himself. “The Cabrellis have always been fighters. You’ll be all right.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“The habit of examining her conscience, instilled by the nuns when she was a child, hadn’t left her. Matelda reflected on past hurts done to her and took stock of those she had perpetrated on others. Tuscans might live in the moment, but the past lived in them. Even if that weren’t true, there were reminders tucked in every corner of her hometown. She knew Viareggio and its people as well as she knew her own body; in a sense, they were one. The mood turned grim in the village as the revelry of Carnevale ended and Lent began. The next forty days would be a somber time of reflection, fasting, and penance. Lent had felt like it lasted an eternity when she was a girl. Easter Sunday could not come soon enough. The day of relief. “You cannot have the joy of Easter Sunday without the agony of Good Friday,” her mother reminded them. “No cross, no crown,” she’d say in a dialect only her children understood. The resurrection of the Lord redeemed the village and set the children free. Black sacks were pulled off the statues of the saints. The bare altar was decorated anew with myrtle and daisies. Plain broth for sustenance during the fast was replaced with sweet bread. The scents of butter, orange zest, and honey as Mama kneaded the dough for Easter bread during Holy Week lifted their spirits. The taste of the soft egg bread, braided into loaves served hot from the oven and drenched in honey, meant the sacrifice was over, at least until”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“Who waits around for a compliment? Ask for it. Then take it. And when you do, you realize you knew the truth all along and you didn’t need anybody else’s opinion in the first place. No one has to tell you that you did a good job.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“want you to realize that this whole thing is just a grand adventure. A fine show. The trick is to play in it and look at it at the same time. . . . The more kinds of people you see, the more things you do, and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they’re not pleasant things. That’s living . . .”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“You cannot buy time when it has been stolen from you.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“When you find your purpose in life, it changes you. You see things differently. More clearly. You love more and better. You solve problems and are able to help others solve theirs because you stand in strength.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“She learned that time could not be the measurement for the things that lasted. Sometimes what endured was that which changed us in a matter of moments, not years.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“You cannot have the joy of Easter Sunday without the agony of Good Friday,” her mother reminded them. “No cross, no crown,” she’d say in a dialect only her children understood.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“There are many gifts a friend brings to a woman’s life. History. Empathy. Honesty. Lucky was the woman who kept a childhood friend because that friend remembered what you looked like, who you were, and your people.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“I want you to realize that this whole thing is just a grand adventure. A fine show. The trick is to play in it and look at it at the same time. . . . The more kinds of people you see, the more things you do, and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they’re not pleasant things. That’s living . . . Emos moved the bookmark so he would not forget the passage from Edna Ferber’s novel So Big. He had not been present for Speranza’s”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“I want you to realize that this whole thing is just a grand adventure. A fine show. The trick is to play in it and look at it at the same time. . . . The more kinds of people you see, the more things you do, and the more things happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they're not pleasant things. That's living . . .

~ Edna Ferber's SO BIG”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“But the first thing that leaves in success is the memory of what it felt like to be poor. We shed that insecurity like an old pair of shoes the moment there's money in the bank. We slip into fine leather and forget how badly our feet used to hurt.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“that you did a good job.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“realize you knew the truth all along and you didn’t need anybody else’s opinion in the first place. No one has to tell you”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“I waited twenty-five years for you to tell me that, Mama.” “You should’ve asked. Who waits around for a compliment? Ask for it. Then take it. And when you”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“As a son, he’s allowed the luxury of failure. A daughter is not allowed to fail. Daughters must be virtuous and hardworking, beautiful and slim, la bella figura! Perfetto! The son can do whatever he wants. Matteo has the cheerful demeanor and smooth brow of a prince who has only ever lived in an era of good times. I’m three years younger and look twenty years older because I live under the stress of being judged.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“you want to find your purpose, something only you can do in the way only you can do it. Make things. Create. And if a man comes along—and believe me, he will—the relationship is already off to a good start because both of you love the same person. You. Lucky him.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“still miss my mother. Isn’t it funny? You forget plenty, but never your mother.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“When you see an old lady who’s on the wrong side of a good mood, now you know why. She has a past that you can’t understand because you didn’t live it. As she ages, her feet hurt, her back aches, her knees click, she cooks, she cleans, she worries, she waits, and then she gets sick and dies. Be kind, Anina. Someday you’ll be the old lady.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“The haves are the haves until they have not.” Now, Savattini understood the riddle.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“There wasn’t time for artifice; their connection was the destination, not the dance that preceded it.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“When you marry a man from your own village, you know how he salts his food.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone

“A cold sentiment deserved a frigid end.”
― Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone