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" I certainly couldn't have written 'Angela's Ashes' when my mother was alive, because she would have been ashamed. "

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" It gives me a very keen satisfaction that, after listening to my blather all those years, former students are now seeing that I wrote a book, that I did have it in me. "

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

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

" I was just dreaming, and if, if I'd written the book and nobody wanted it, I would have put it in the drawer and said, 'Well, I did that.' "

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" When I was a kid, I was a pretty good runner, and there was nothing like winning a race. "

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

" I think there are two cities in the world - New York and Rome. "

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

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

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

" I can do no more than tell the truth. "

" Everyone has a story to tell. All you have to do is write it. But it's not that easy. "

" The main thing I am interested in is my experience as a teacher. "

" 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. "

" I don't know anything about a stock! "

" I can't go too much into my domestic life because there are ex-wives ready to do me in. "

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

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

" I hated school in Ireland. "

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

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

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