Carmela Soprano Quotes For When You Don’t Want To Put Up With Anyone’s Garbage

Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) was best known as a devoted wife to Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a doting mother to her two children, Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) and A.J. (Robert Iler), and a devoted Catholic with a peculiar relationship with her priest on The Sopranos (which you can stream on HBO Now). One thing she doesn’t get enough credit for, however, is her refusal to put up with anyone’s garbage or nonsense. Sure, her husband was the head of a criminal empire who cheated on her constantly — details that she knew and elected to ignore (to a point, anyway), and both her kids had varying airs of entitlement to them, but day-to-day, Carmela was anything but a pushover. In the spirit of her fierce tenacity, here are some choice Carmela quotes should you find yourself sick of putting up with everyone’s garbage.

“Getting my wine in position to throw in your damn face.”

All it takes for Carmela to get ready to go on the offensive is having Tony tell her that he has to make a confession. It turned out he was only coming clean about seeing a therapist (though, the details of this would come up again), but when you’ve spent your life dealing with other people’s garbage, sometimes it doesn’t take much to trigger these reflexes.

“You are bigger than life. You are his mother. I don’t think for one second that you don’t know what you’re doing to him.”

After a lifetime of seeing her mother-in-law mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand), ruthlessly manipulate Tony, Carmela makes a trip down to Green Grove nursing home to try and put a stop to it. Despite Livia being a figure of great intimidation, as well as the source of the show’s conflict early on, not putting up with anyone’s garbage means looking straight through that in order to face issues like this head-on.

“Go upstairs and act like a good Catholic for fifteen f*cking minutes. Is that so much to ask?”

Being married to a guy like Tony meant Carmela had long ago given up any chance at being a typical suburban housewife, but not for lack of trying. One such effort is thwarted when Tony catches A.J. smoking pot in their garage while he’s supposed to be upstairs celebrating his confirmation. When those you count on somehow fall short of very reasonable expectations, a little disappointment highlighted with a lot of scorn will definitely go a long way.

“This is such a crock of sh*t.”

Due to her devout love of certain sacred institutions, Carmela’s usually eager to avoid making a scene at an inopportune moment. She makes an exception at an impromptu wake being held for her mother-in-law, however, practically calling everyone out while dropping some extremely harsh — and accurate — truths about the departed. Of course, if you’re going to go through the ordeal of making a scene, having a few drinks sure makes it easier to work up to. Just proceed with caution.

“So, like a lot of other people, you go around looking for boogey men to blame — boogey men with Italian names.”

It’s become customary to blame your problems on things like circumstance and environment. Regardless of how valid that may be in certain situations, this simply does not go over with Carmela, even with her own daughter, who’s still raw from the murder of her ex-boyfriend, Jackie Jr. (Matt Cerbone). Of course, not putting up with anyone’s garbage doesn’t take a moratorium, as Carmela is quick to remind us.

“Who knew all this time you wanted Tracy and Hepburn?”

The season four finale, “Whitecaps,” is best known for the epic, emotionally draining fight between Carmela and Tony that takes up the bulk of the episode and eventually leads to their separation. During that time, the anger that Carmela had been suppressing over the years ended up overflowing like an emotional volcano. If it’s gonna come to this, and we hope it doesn’t, but if it does, take a cue from Carmela and keep your wits about you. While you’re at it, don’t hesitate to throw in an outdated pop-culture reference if you can.

“I am intimately acquainted with the Soprano curse. Your father, your uncle, your great-grandfather who drove the donkey cart off the road in Avellino, all of it.”

If you read that quote in Carmela’s voice, then you know that this is the sound of someone who’s tired of hearing the same old garbage from the same people all of the time — in this case, Tony. Here, Carmela has a way of peppering her response with a kind of thoroughness that’ll leave a lasting mark. Particularly because of the way she remembered an incident with Tony’s great-grandfather back in Italy from a one-off story that Tony had told years earlier.

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