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

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" The uncluttered life is the key to a good memory. "

" 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. "

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

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

" Ireland, once you live there, you're seduced by it. "

" We were below welfare. We begged from people on welfare. My father tried to repair our shoes with pieces of bicycle tires. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" One day a week should be set aside for field trips. "

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

" 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 hated school in Ireland. "

" I don't know anything about a stock! "

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

" A lot of people say writers start losing their powers after 60 or 65. But I look at the best-seller list and see a book by that 14-year-old gymnast, Dominique Moceanu, and I think, 'Now, what's she going to tell the world? And these 25-year-old rock stars, what are they going to tell the world?' "

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

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

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

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

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

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

" Teachers have a million stories, but nobody consults them. "

" I'm a late bloomer. "

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

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

" First of all there is always that artistic challenge of creating something. Or the particular experience to take slum life in that period and make something out of it in the form of a book. And then I felt some kind of responsibility to my family. "

" They tell me I'm on 'Politically Incorrect' with Ollie North. That should be a lot of fun. "

" 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. "