The Queen Of The Big Time Quotes
"The whole world will change if my parents let me go to school."
"Over the hill, our farmhouse, freshly painted pale gray, seems to dance above the ground like a cloud."
"Even the water in the creek...seems full of possibility."
"If only I could get an education, then I could get a good job and give Mama the world."
"The fields covered in bright yellow dandelions, low thickets of tiny red beach roses by the road, and stalks of black-eyed Susans by the barn are all accidents."
"Everything that’s pretty on the farm is wild."
"The land has pits and holes and the grass grows in tufts."
"Roseto is built on a hill, and the houses are so close together, they are almost connected."
"It helps to laugh because then you don’t think about the dying part so much."
"Papa still works in the quarry for extra money sometimes, but mainly his living comes from the three cows, ten chickens, and twelve hogs we have on the farm."
"You’re very kind. You didn’t have to offer to walk me to school, but you did and I appreciate it."
"If I have to scrub a thousand floors to go to Columbus School, the exchange will be worth it."
"The children are in the barn playing hide-and-seek."
"With darkness settling around us, she points to the sun as it sinks behind the slate hills like a deep pink peony."
"Imagine not bathing in the old tin tub set in the middle of the kitchen near the stove where it is warm."
"You’re not pretty at all...It’s not your fault. You got the worst features of Papa and Mama."
"The most important element of being a lady is posture and carriage."
"Imagine having your own bathwater that you haven’t shared with your sisters!"
"Papa loves to have company, especially male company."
"This is how our people came to live here...They named it Roseto, after the town they came from. In Italian, it means 'hillside covered with roses.'"
"It must be heavenly to have your own batch of hot water."
"I’ve had little crushes, but for the most part, the boys at Delabole School are silly."
"I never thought about a dowry, but it makes sense. Of course, we have to pay someone to take Assunta off of our hands."
"I’m sure Alessandro isn’t expecting—How do you know what he expects?"
"I can’t do any of this without Assunta’s help. 'It’s a deal,' I tell her."
"Chores have to be done every day, rain or shine."
"Because being funny is much better than being beautiful; I can see that already."
"It’s so quiet on the farm, nobody ever drops in, it’s always arranged. Here, you have conversations on the street, you hear people laughing."
"Finally, something I am good at. Finally, something I can have that is all my own."
"God understands the workingman and his duties."
"No woman should marry a man she doesn’t love. Not ever."
"The sun comes up over the barn so brightly it seems to set the cornfield ablaze in yellow light."
"Mama, will we be able to go to the Big Time?"
"What are you thinking about?" Elena asks as we make the turn onto Easton Road to pick Papa up at the hospital.
"Papa looks at Alessandro. 'This is why it’s best to have daughters.'"
"Life on the farm is so claustrophobic sometimes."
"You should never apologize for what you are."
"I’ll never see him again because I’ll never walk down this street again."
"I wish Papa would sell it! Sell it and we’ll move to town and make a living like everyone else."
"You better change your attitude, because people can read your true feelings."
"He loves you, he’s coming back to be with you and the baby."
"Wake up, Nella!" Elena says excitedly. "Come, it’s Assunta! She’s having the baby!"
"I long to hold him and comfort him, but he has pushed me away. He is so complex, and so often I don’t understand him."
"I cannot bear to see him suffering like this, and if I could, I would take on his pain so he would have it no longer."
"Time waits for no one, and while he still feels good, he wants to take it easy."
"It’s like he’s blaming you because his father died."
"Just be present for him. That’s all you can do."
"I am not the man who can give it to you. I will think of you always with affection."
"Every Christmas Eve, Papa would go out to the woods on the outskirts of Delabole farm and cut down a tree."
"The holiday was always the happiest time for our family, but not anymore."
"He would want her daughter raised by a good woman."
"Ignore it. There will soon be another story burning up and down Garibaldi Avenue, long after your wedding corsage has wilted."
"I think about how my life is going backward. I am becoming the maiden aunt, even though I never planned to be."
"You got it. Edith Head, Adrian, all the big names, all of them are participating."
"It’s a process of figuring out what someone needs and giving it to them."
"He didn’t seem like what? And how dare you spy on us, anyhow!"
"You shouldn’t have been kissing in the middle of the cutting room! That’s a nice way for a forelady to act."
"It is better to be with someone who cares about me than to pine for someone who does not."
"What good would come of it? He would surely have a problem with it, any man would."
"You Castellucas, who do you think you are? A bunch of farmers."
"Remember what I told you. I mean what I say."
"Everything is good luck on a wedding day: rain, sun, left hooks."
"I sure hope so, because I’m gonna need all the luck I can get."
"Somebody has to be first, and I’m glad it’s you."
"I love Franco, but marriage seems like another job on top of the work I do at the mill."
"I want you in my bed every night for the rest of my life."
"The sun is starting to peek over the hill, throwing a bright gleam on Dewey Street."
"I need him desperately, and the thought of losing him is inconceivable to me."
"I don’t know how to have fun, I don’t know how to let go, and therefore I don’t know how to live."
"You’d be the first Castelluca to lose. They’re a determined bunch."
"The deep wells of desire, the sting of regret, the passion of my youth, all of those things have made me who I am."
"To come from nothing and make something of yourself, to provide for a family, is no small feat."
"All those years toiling in the Society of Mary, working in the mill proving my mettle, and defending the family name when Elena married our brother-in-law seem to float away like the white balloons let loose over the church plaza when the parade begins."
"Sometimes it seems like it was yesterday, and then there are days when my life feels double the fifty years and I can stop moments in my memory and relive them, actually feeling the things I used to feel."
"No woman should be alone at this moment, and if at all possible, her mother should be with her."
"I wish I could have been young when I was young."
"Maybe a first love exists to reaffirm the best parts of yourself, the choices you made when you didn’t worry about the consequences."
"I feel good; I almost float. No wonder everyone was worried when I did not weep for Franco; there is great relief in tears."
"Like you were. Just like you were," I tell her.
"I love you too, Mama," she whispers. "And you, Francesca."
"All faith is a belief that life is meant to be, and that beyond it, we never die."
"Roseto is now for the newly wed or the nearly dead."
"But eventually you get it right. That’s why God invented erasers, don’t forget it."