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" You look at passers-by in Rome and think, 'Do they know what they have here?' You can say the same about Philadelphia. Do people know what went on here? "

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" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" I had moments with my father that were exquisite - the stories he told me about Cuchulain, the mythological Irish warrior, are still magical to me. "

" You feel a sense of urgency, especially at my advanced age, when you're staring into the grave. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I became a teacher all right. I wanted to become a teacher because I had a misconception about it. I didn't know that I'd be going into - when I first became a high school teacher in New York, that I'd be going into a battle zone, and no one prepared me for that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I had never attended high school, but I was fairly well read. "

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

" I had to get rid of any idea of hell or any idea of the afterlife. That's what held me, kept me down. So now I just have nothing but contempt for the institution of the church. "

" I knew I had to find my own way of teaching. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" I certainly couldn't have written 'Angela's Ashes' when my mother was alive, because she would have been ashamed. "

" I can't go too much into my domestic life because there are ex-wives ready to do me in. "

" 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? "

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

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

" I loved reading and writing, and teaching was the most exalted profession I could imagine. "

" 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. "