Nia Vardalos Quotes

In many ways we are all sons and daughters of ancient Greece.

My New Year's Resolution List usually starts with the desire to lose between ten and three thousand pounds.

You only get one life so you might as well make it a happy one, and that's why I tend to just jump into things. I'm sort of a fearless idiot that way.

When I used to do musical theatre, my dad refused to come backstage.

He never wanted to see the props up close or the sets up close. He didn't want to see the magic.

I do recommend it for all girls, and boys, out there: put on a pair of fishnet stockings and find your inner sexiness!

If the standard route for creating a family had worked for me, I wouldn't have met this child. I needed to know her. I needed to be her mother. She is, in every way my daughter.

Becoming a mother is the best thing that has ever happened to me, I am happy to once again be a part of National Adoption Day. We were matched with our daughter through the U.S. foster care system, and my goal is to share information about the more than 120,000 foster care children in this country who are waiting for a family.

I don't card out my screenplays ever.

I just have an idea I just sit down and write I don't edit. Sometimes the first draft will come out at 200 pages. I think and think and I go, "um this story is about the brother that appears on page 178." I go back and I rewrite.

I couldn't get an acting job to save my life when I moved to L.A.

The man may be the head of the household.

But the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head whichever way she pleases.

I am not anti-man. I am married to a man... I have a father and a brother... I love men. But there is something really lacking when Cake is nominated. How does Julianne Moore win for Best Actress but her film isn't nominated for Best Screenplay? How does Gone Girl become such a critically-acclaimed and box-office hit but its scriptwriter, Gillian Flynn, isn't nominated for Best screenplay. It's disgusting!

My singing - it's who I am, it's all of me and it's my soul.

The self expression of using your vocal equipment is not only physical and spiritual, but it's something you can't explain. It's your heart and soul together. Yes, I enjoy acting, but I portray other people. But when I sing, it's just me on that stage, communicating how I feel, how I think and what I believe.

Sometimes I'm surprised when someone who has achieved success is incredibly Machiavellian in their manipulations. So, while I want to believe it's integrity, that might just show how naïve I am. I sometimes worry that I might not be shrewd enough to maneuver myself through the Hollywood system.

I would rather be called funny than pretty.

I feel the same way when I meet somebody in Los Angeles, because I'm from Winnipeg. I'm just a very ordinary girl that something extraordinary happened to. So, I'll go to an event and, say, stand next to Charlize Theron and be like, "Oh my God! This is incredible!" And then you get to talk to her and you find out she's a real person. She's a mom and very interesting. I'm constantly thunderstruck by people that I admire.

Socially, the issue of men's weight is simply not a big deal.

What I wish I had, is that I wish I was a little more Greek, in that I wish I could lose my North American driven attitude and that I could be a little bit more poetic and laissez faire.

And (cue music swell) motherhood turned out to be the most meaningful thing I've ever done with my life. Really.

Time can turn a scab into a beauty mark.

It wasn't easy to adopt an American child.

Actually it's quite simple, but finding out how to do it was the hard part.

Sometimes if something scares me, I lean right into it .

I’m not a brave person— I’m more of a fearless idiot.

Being an actor/ writer is a responsibility and a burden and a gift.

The responsibility to me is that you can't just wait to be cast into something and then you create the role. You almost have a voice inside of you telling you what you might want to play and be able to play. It's hard, but once that thing comes out of the printer and you hold those warm pages to your cheek it's great. It's a huge sense of accomplishment.

Now that I'm experiencing motherhood, I'm ready to write the next chapter of my family story. Of course a few jaded folks in the press corps will claim I ran out of money or just want to kiss John Corbett again. One of these things is true.

You're not ethnic enough. You're not fat enough. You're not thin enough. You're not blond enough. You're not dark enough. You're not young enough. You're not old enough.

On the publicity tour of 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding,' I was asked over and over again, if, as the writer, I felt it was a fair depiction of real life to have someone of my er, below average looks, hook up with hottie John Corbett.

I love romance. I think our skin clears up and we're nicer when you are in love.

My daughter is a preschooler but I have only known her for a while. She is adopted.

As we know, there are companies like Monsanto filling the Earth with their genetically-modified poison, which makes me wonder how many people share our belief that it's better to be good.We have to change the world!

Let's face it: Russell Crowe is fat and no one ever talks about it.

I don't card out my screenplays ever. I just have an idea I just sit down and write I don't edit.

You're never too fat for a new purse.

On November 15th, 2008, in over 300 cities, 4,000 children were adopted in one day.

I'd been raised by my parents who taught me not to think you're better than you are.

I look at Playtone, the company that produced My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

I call them my Playtoners. They are the kindest people who treated me like gold before that movie made a dime. We became personal friends. When I think about how lovely and wonderful they are that convinces me that you don't have to make a deal with the devil to succeed. It's a choice.

I thought I was attractive when I shot 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

' Studio executives and movie reviewers let me know I had a confidence in my looks that was not shared by them.

It's not like suddenly, when you become a working actor all your friends are in the same situation. I have friends who are still handing out flyers for their one-woman show and trying to make ends meet.

We live in an unsafe world.