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" 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. "

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" Worse than the ordinary, miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. "

Frank McCourt

Childhood

Ordinary

Miserable

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

" 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. "

Frank McCourt

Book

Say

" 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'm always a great student of writers' work habits. Balzac sat at his desk dressed in a monk's robe, and he always had to have a rotten apple on his desk. The smell of the apple inspired him somehow. "

" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "

" 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. "

" There were a number of houses. When we first arrived in Limerick, it was a one-room affair with most of it taken up with a bed. "

" I think that's why you see so many Americans in Dublin look so sad: they are looking for the door through which they can begin to understand this place. I tell them, 'Go to the races.' I think it's the best place to start understanding the Irish. "

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

" In public schools, classes are bloated - it's ridiculous. "

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

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

Frank McCourt

Interested

Performing

" And, of course, they've always condemned dancing. You know, you might touch a member of the opposite sex. And you might get excited and you might do something natural. "

" 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. "

" Even when I went to the Lion's Head in the Village, where all you journalists would hang out, I was always peripheral. I was never really part of anything except the classroom. That's where I belonged. "

" Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow. "

" 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. "

" I admire certain priests and nuns who go off on their own and do God's work on their own, who help in the ghettos, but as far as the institution of the church is concerned, I think it is despicable. "

" I hated school in Ireland. "

" I thought everything would be different in America. It wasn't. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

Frank McCourt

Going

Absurdity