Lorraine Bracco quotes:

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 am funny. No one else thinks I am funny. But I am funny.

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

I learned nothing while I was in school.

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.