Frank McCourt Quotes
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.
Frank McCourt
Quotes to Explore
People want real-life stories.
Frank McCourt
I thought everything would be different in America. It wasn't.
Frank McCourt
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
I know it wasn't the dinner wine that had me against the wall in a fit of remorse. It was the thought of my mother being so lonesome she had to sit on a street bench, so lonesome she missed the company of a homeless shopping bag woman. Even in the bad days in Limerick she always had an open hand and an open door and why couldn't I be like that to her?
Frank McCourt
I admire certain priests and nuns who go off on their own and do God's work on their own, who help in the ghettos, but as far as the institution of the church is concerned, I think it is despicable.
Frank McCourt
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.
Frank McCourt
Kids all want to look cool, as if knowledge is a great burden, but they're always looking around. They remember.
Frank McCourt
Just luxuriate in a certain memory, and the details will come. It's like a magnet attracting steel filings.
Frank McCourt
I would dream of going up to the 'New York Times' and asking them if I could please be a copy boy or let me scrub the toilets or something like that. But I couldn't rise to those heights.
Frank McCourt
Some, like Mother Teresa, are born with a gene to help the poor, and some are born with a gene to write. I was born with a gene to tell my story, and I just had to.
Frank McCourt
When I was a kid, I was a pretty good runner, and there was nothing like winning a race.
Frank McCourt
I couldn't even pick up the newspaper without saying, 'This is a fine piece of writing. I wish to hell I could write like this.'
Frank McCourt
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
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
You feel a sense of urgency, especially at my advanced age, when you're staring into the grave.
Frank McCourt
I just have to proceed as usual. No matter what happens, nothing helps with the writing of the next book.
Frank McCourt
I learned the significance of my own insignificant life.
Frank McCourt
That's what kept us going - a sense of absurdity, rather than humor.
Frank McCourt
