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" I think there's something about the Irish experience - that we had to have a sense of humor or die. "

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" 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. "

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

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

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

" Certain citizens claimed I had disgraced the fair name of the city of Limerick, that I had attacked the church, that I had despoiled my mother's name, and that if I returned to Limerick, I would surely be found hanging from a lamppost. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" St. Patrick, bringing the religion to Ireland, this is what we should celebrate. "

" People want real-life stories. "

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

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

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

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

" 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 learned the significance of my own insignificant life. "

" I never really fit in anywhere. "

" I'm more interested in writing than in performing. "

" The part of Limerick we lived in is Georgian, you know, those Georgian houses. You see them in pictures of Dublin. "

" Autobiography should be more stringent. It should adhere more to the standards of journalism - assuming that journalism has the truth. The memoir gives you more scope, is more poetic, and allows you to play around with your own life. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "

Happy Childhood

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

" People who think I have insulted Ireland or Limerick or my family have not read the book! "

" Scatter my ashes on the Shannon. "

" 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. "

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