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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. "

Frank McCourt

New York

City

World

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "

" 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. "

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

Frank McCourt

Going

Absurdity

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Frank McCourt

Business

Mistake

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

" At 66, you're supposed to die or get hemorrhoids. "

" I was unloading sides of beef down on the docks when I decided enough was enough. By then, I'd done a lot of reading on my own, so I persuaded New York University to enroll me. "

Frank McCourt

Own

Enough

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

Frank McCourt

People

Memoirs

" When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. "

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

" I never really fit in anywhere. "

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

" 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? "

" 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. "

" We never really had any kind of a Christmas. This is one part where my memory fails me completely. "

" 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. "

Frank McCourt

Think

Home

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

" We had nothing, no television, no radio, nothing to get in the way. We read by the streetlight at the top of the lane, and we acted out the stories. "

" 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. "

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

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

Frank McCourt

Interested

Performing