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" 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. "

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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. "

Frank McCourt

Book

Experience

Kind

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

Frank McCourt

People

Memoirs

" People come up to me and talk about the alcoholism in their family. "

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

" I wanted to avoid all that literary stuff. I didn't want the self pity of 'The Portrait,' all the moaning and the whingeing. I'm not knocking Joyce: we all owe him a debt. He's the one who made so much possible. "

" 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?' "

" I just have to proceed as usual. No matter what happens, nothing helps with the writing of the next book. "

" If I have a cause, it's the cause of the teacher. "

Frank McCourt

Teacher

Cause

" 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. "

" I knew I had to find my own way of teaching. "

" I hated school in Ireland. "

" Mam was always saying we had a simple diet: tea and bread, bread and tea, a liquid and a solid, a balanced diet - what more do you need? Nobody got fat. "

" I didn't have to struggle at all to get an agent and a publisher. Everything fell into my lap. "

" 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. "

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

" There were a number of houses. When we first arrived in Limerick, it was a one-room affair with most of it taken up with a bed. "

" When I came to America, I dreamed bigger dreams. "

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

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

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

" I learned the significance of my own insignificant life. "

" 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. "

" Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow. "

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

" 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

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

" And, of course, they've always condemned dancing. You know, you might touch a member of the opposite sex. And you might get excited and you might do something natural. "

" Every life is a mystery. There is nobody whose life is normal and boring. "

" 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

" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "