Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Early in my teaching days, the kids asked me the meaning of a poem. I replied, 'I don't know any more than you do. I have ideas. What are your ideas?' I realized then that we're all in the same boat. What does anybody know? "

Related Quotes:

" You look at passers-by in Rome and think, 'Do they know what they have here?' You can say the same about Philadelphia. Do people know what went on here? "

Frank McCourt

Think

You

Know

" I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book. "

" I think there's something about the Irish experience - that we had to have a sense of humor or die. "

" They tell me I'm on 'Politically Incorrect' with Ollie North. That should be a lot of fun. "

Frank McCourt

Should

North

" Even when I went to the Lion's Head in the Village, where all you journalists would hang out, I was always peripheral. I was never really part of anything except the classroom. That's where I belonged. "

" I've been writing in notebooks for 40 years or so. "

" I was unloading sides of beef down on the docks when I decided enough was enough. By then, I'd done a lot of reading on my own, so I persuaded New York University to enroll me. "

Frank McCourt

Own

Enough

" I loved reading and writing, and teaching was the most exalted profession I could imagine. "

" Kids all want to look cool, as if knowledge is a great burden, but they're always looking around. They remember. "

" My mother had had six children in five and a half years, and three of them died in that time. "

" You're beginning to hear the tale of the common man and woman rather than the traditional memoir about the generals who just finished the war or the politicians who just rendered glorious service to the country. "

" O'Casey was writing about people in the streets and his mother and dying babies and poverty. So that astounded me because I thought you could only write about English matters. "

" When I first went up to see my editor, I was with my agent, and my editor said, 'Well, what have you been doing all these years?' And my agent said, 'He's been in recovery. From his childhood.' "

" There was a kind of madness in the country. Eamon De Valera, the prime minister, had this vision of an Ireland where we'd all be in some kind of native costume - which doesn't exist - and we'd be dancing at the crossroads, babbling away in Gaelic, going to Mass, everyone virginal and pure. "

" That's what kept us going - a sense of absurdity, rather than humor. "

Frank McCourt

Going

Absurdity

" If ever you are to be visited by the Holy Ghost, you should make certain you're sitting beside a fireman. "

" Way back in my mid-20s, I started making notes. I would just jot things down: lists of street names, songs, peculiar turns of speech, jokes, whatever. "

" You don't have to go fight bulls in Spain like Hemingway to write something great, or go off to war. It's right under your nose. "

Frank McCourt

You

Great

" The day I write my last word will be the day that I feel free. "

" I had moments with my father that were exquisite - the stories he told me about Cuchulain, the mythological Irish warrior, are still magical to me. "

" The sky is the limit. You never have the same experience twice. "

" On the last day of my teaching career, I was sitting in my apartment, having a glass of wine, thinking I'm glad I did it, that I had been somehow useful, that I had learned something. "

" We've had enough of the generals and movie stars. We want to hear about the ordinary people. "

" I was ashamed of it, of the poverty I came from. "

" Actually, my mother and Alfie came for three weeks' Christmas vacation and stayed for 21 years. I guess my mother never went back because she was lonely. "

" I'm not one of those James Joyce intellectuals who can stand back and look at the whole edifice... It was a slow process for me to just crawl out of it, like a snake leaving his skin behind. "

Frank McCourt

Snake

Stand

" I thought everything would be different in America. It wasn't. "

" People want real-life stories. "

" Sure, I went through my 'J'accuse' phase. I was so angry for so long, I could hardly have a conversation without getting into an argument. And it was only when I felt I could finally distance myself from my past that I began to write about what happened - not just to me, but to lots of young people. I think my story is a cautionary tale. "

" Ireland, once you live there, you're seduced by it. "