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

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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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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.' "

" Some, like Mother Teresa, are born with a gene to help the poor, and some are born with a gene to write. I was born with a gene to tell my story, and I just had to. "

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

" It's like a series of waves hitting you. First, getting excerpted in the 'New Yorker' last summer, then getting published, then the best-seller list, the award, the movie deal, now this, a Pulitzer. "

" I'm a late bloomer. "

" 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? "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I worked in a number of high schools in New York, and I wound up at Stuyvesant High School, which is known nationally for producing brilliant scientists and mathematicians, but I had writing classes. I thought I was teaching. They thought I was teaching, but I was learning. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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? "

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

" 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. "

" When I read about Joyce, I realised that there was no eight-till-one in his life: it was 24 hours a day for him. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" Scatter my ashes on the Shannon. "