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" 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. "
Frank McCourt
School
Chance
Education
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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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" I'm more interested in writing than in performing. "
Frank McCourt
Interested
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Performing
" For some reason, I had a responsibility to my family and the people who lived around me. I felt that I had to convey their dignity - the way they dealt with adversity and poverty - and their good humor. "
Frank McCourt
Adversity
People
Humor
" 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. "
Frank McCourt
Village
You
Lion
" I had no accomplishments except surviving. But that isn't enough in the community where I came from, because everybody was doing it. So I wasn't prepared for America, where everybody is glowing with good teeth and good clothes and food. "
Frank McCourt
America
Good
Food
" 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
More
Mistake
" 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. "
Frank McCourt
Teacher
High School
Look
" I've had experiences on both sides of the ocean and various classrooms and bedrooms around New York. "
Frank McCourt
New York
Ocean
Sides
" Way back in my mid-20s, I started making notes. I would just jot things down: lists of street names, songs, peculiar turns of speech, jokes, whatever. "
Frank McCourt
Street
Way
Back
" St. Patrick, bringing the religion to Ireland, this is what we should celebrate. "
Frank McCourt
Should
Religion
Celebrate
" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "
Frank McCourt
Worth
Happy Childhood
Happy
" You feel a sense of urgency, especially at my advanced age, when you're staring into the grave. "
Frank McCourt
Urgency
You
Staring
" You sail into the harbor, and Staten Island is on your left, and then you see the Statue of Liberty. This is what everyone in the world has dreams of when they think about New York. And I thought, 'My God, I'm in Heaven. I'll be dancing down Fifth Avenue like Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers.' "
Frank McCourt
Sail
New York
God
" 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
Me
" When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. "
Frank McCourt
Look
I Wonder
Back
" My father and mother should have stayed in New York, where they met and married and where I was born. "
Frank McCourt
New
Met
Born
" 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. "
Frank McCourt
New
Summer
Award
" A funeral was a great form of entertainment. A wake was a great form of entertainment. "
Frank McCourt
Funeral
Great
Entertainment
" My dream was to have a Library of Congress catalogue number, that's all. "
Frank McCourt
Number
Dream
Congress
" I can't go too much into my domestic life because there are ex-wives ready to do me in. "
Frank McCourt
Ready
Life
Too Much
" Scatter my ashes on the Shannon. "
Frank McCourt
Scatter
Ashes
" 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. "
Frank McCourt
Best
Start
Sad
" I never really fit in anywhere. "
Frank McCourt
Anywhere
Really
Never
" If ever you are to be visited by the Holy Ghost, you should make certain you're sitting beside a fireman. "
Frank McCourt
Make
Beside
Ghost
" I don't see myself as either Irish or American, I'm a New Yorker. "
Frank McCourt
American
Irish
Myself
" I couldn't fit in the Irish community in New York. I was never one of the boys because they would talk about baseball or basketball, and I knew nothing about it. "
Frank McCourt
Nothing
New York
Baseball
" I didn't have to struggle at all to get an agent and a publisher. Everything fell into my lap. "
Frank McCourt
Everything
Agent
Struggle
" 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. "
Frank McCourt
Work
Dressed
Apple
" I didn't know you could write about yourself. Nobody ever told me about this. "
Frank McCourt
You
Write
Nobody
" Teachers have a million stories, but nobody consults them. "
Frank McCourt
Them
Million
Stories