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" Just luxuriate in a certain memory, and the details will come. It's like a magnet attracting steel filings. "

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" 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. "

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

" I never really fit in anywhere. "

" I didn't know you could write about yourself. Nobody ever told me about this. "

" If I had millions and millions and millions of dollars, I'd leave a large portion to the 42nd Street library. That's why - that was my hangout, the reading rooms, the North and South reading rooms. I'd go there, and my God, I couldn't believe I had access to all of these books. That was my university. "

" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "

Happy Childhood

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" When I got out of the army, I had the G.I. Bill. Since I had no high school education or anything like that, I came to NYU, and they took a chance on me and let me in. "

" 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. "

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

" There was a kind of madness in the country. Eamon De Valera, the prime minister, had this vision of an Ireland where we'd all be in some kind of native costume - which doesn't exist - and we'd be dancing at the crossroads, babbling away in Gaelic, going to Mass, everyone virginal and pure. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I'm a late bloomer. "

" I don't see myself as either Irish or American, I'm a New Yorker. "

" I was ashamed of it, of the poverty I came from. "

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

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

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

" We don't look at teachers as scholars the way they do in Europe. In Spain you're called a professor if you're a high school teacher, and they pay teachers - they pay teachers in Europe. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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