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" 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. "
Frank McCourt
Nothing
Church
Down
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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. "
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" Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow. "
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" I just wrote the book and was amazed and astounded that it became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize. It still hasn't sunk in. "
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" I would dream of going up to the 'New York Times' and asking them if I could please be a copy boy or let me scrub the toilets or something like that. But I couldn't rise to those heights. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" Ireland, once you live there, you're seduced by it. "
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" If I have a cause, it's the cause of the teacher. "
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" We were supposed to stay over in Boston, but when Scribners heard I'd won the Pulitzer, they told me to get on a plane - that Katie Couric wanted my body. And when Katie Couric wants your body, you get moving right away. "
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" My sister died in Brooklyn. "
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Brooklyn
Sister
" The sky is the limit. You never have the same experience twice. "
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" You feel a sense of urgency, especially at my advanced age, when you're staring into the grave. "
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" I've been writing in notebooks for 40 years or so. "
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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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" 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. "
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" I hated school in Ireland. "
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Ireland
" If ever you are to be visited by the Holy Ghost, you should make certain you're sitting beside a fireman. "
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" 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.' "
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" He came to the States in 1963, I think with a view to making up with my mother, but that didn't work. He came for three weeks, and drank his way all over Brooklyn. And went back... I went to his funeral in Belfast. "
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Think
" 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. "
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Mother
Christmas
She
" If somebody wants me to speak in, say, Chicago, a limousine picks me up at the door to brings me to the airport. I fly at the front of the plane, and a limousine meets me at the other end to take me to a grand hotel, and usually an envelope is left for me with a per diem, maybe $150-a-day walking around money, and then I go home. "
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End
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" 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? "
Frank McCourt
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" Every life is a mystery. There is nobody whose life is normal and boring. "
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" When I came to America, I dreamed bigger dreams. "
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" I was ashamed of it, of the poverty I came from. "
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" I was a houseman, the lowest. I was just above - in the hierarchy of jobs, I was just above the Puerto Rican dishwashers - just above, so I felt superior to them. "
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" St. Patrick, bringing the religion to Ireland, this is what we should celebrate. "
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" 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. "
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" I couldn't fit in the Irish community in New York. I was never one of the boys because they would talk about baseball or basketball, and I knew nothing about it. "
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" I think there are two cities in the world - New York and Rome. "
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New