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" First of all there is always that artistic challenge of creating something. Or the particular experience to take slum life in that period and make something out of it in the form of a book. And then I felt some kind of responsibility to my family. "

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" There's nothing in the world like getting up in front of a high-school classroom in New York City. They won't give you a break if you don't hold them. There's no escape. "

Frank McCourt

New York

City

World

" I don't see myself as either Irish or American, I'm a New Yorker. "

" Just luxuriate in a certain memory, and the details will come. It's like a magnet attracting steel filings. "

" They all went into the bar business. Which was a mistake, because they began to sip at the merchandise and it set them back, set us all back. Well, them more than I. "

Frank McCourt

Business

Mistake

" 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. "

" If you have a class of 35 children, and they're all smiling, and there's one little bastard, and he's just staring at you as if to say 'Show me', then he's the one you think about going home on the train. "

Frank McCourt

Think

Home

" I never expected to write a book about a slum in Ireland that was going to catapult me, as they say, into some kind of - onto the best seller list. "

Frank McCourt

Book

Say

" When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. "

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

" We were below welfare. We begged from people on welfare. My father tried to repair our shoes with pieces of bicycle tires. "

" A lot of people say writers start losing their powers after 60 or 65. But I look at the best-seller list and see a book by that 14-year-old gymnast, Dominique Moceanu, and I think, 'Now, what's she going to tell the world? And these 25-year-old rock stars, what are they going to tell the world?' "

" There's so much absurdity. Poverty is so absurd. "

" I had to get rid of any idea of hell or any idea of the afterlife. That's what held me, kept me down. So now I just have nothing but contempt for the institution of the church. "

" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "

" My dream was to have a Library of Congress catalogue number, that's all. "

" For some reason, I had a responsibility to my family and the people who lived around me. I felt that I had to convey their dignity - the way they dealt with adversity and poverty - and their good humor. "

" One day a week should be set aside for field trips. "

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

" People want real-life stories. "

" I had no accomplishments except surviving. But that isn't enough in the community where I came from, because everybody was doing it. So I wasn't prepared for America, where everybody is glowing with good teeth and good clothes and food. "

" We don't look at teachers as scholars the way they do in Europe. In Spain you're called a professor if you're a high school teacher, and they pay teachers - they pay teachers in Europe. "

" 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. "

" Something happened when the memoirs of so-called ordinary people, like myself, suddenly hit the bestseller list. "

Frank McCourt

People

Memoirs

" My sister died in Brooklyn. "

" My childhood here... was very limited. So it was a long, long time before I actually went out to Brooklyn. "

" In public schools, classes are bloated - it's ridiculous. "

" The uncluttered life is the key to a good memory. "

" A funeral was a great form of entertainment. A wake was a great form of entertainment. "

" I'm a late bloomer. "

" My father and mother should have stayed in New York, where they met and married and where I was born. "