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" You're beginning to hear the tale of the common man and woman rather than the traditional memoir about the generals who just finished the war or the politicians who just rendered glorious service to the country. "

Frank McCourt

Beginning

Service

Man

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

" On the last day of my teaching career, I was sitting in my apartment, having a glass of wine, thinking I'm glad I did it, that I had been somehow useful, that I had learned something. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

Frank McCourt

Teacher

Cause

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

" 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? "

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

" People want real-life stories. "

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

" 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

" I'm not one of those James Joyce intellectuals who can stand back and look at the whole edifice... It was a slow process for me to just crawl out of it, like a snake leaving his skin behind. "

Frank McCourt

Snake

Stand

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

" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My sister died in Brooklyn. "

" For some reason, I wrote about the bed we slept in when I was a kid. It was a half-acre of misery, that bed, sagging in the middle, red hair sticking out of the mattress, the spring gone and the fleas leaping all over the place. "

" 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. "

" Scatter my ashes on the Shannon. "

Frank McCourt

Scatter

Ashes

" 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. "