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
If ever you are to be visited by the Holy Ghost, you should make certain you’re sitting beside a fireman. – 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 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
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
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
Worse than the ordinary, miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. – Frank McCourt
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?’ – Frank McCourt
When I was a teacher, I’d walk into the classroom. I stood at the board. I was the man. I directed operations. I was an intellectual and artistic and moral traffic cop, and I – and I would direct the class, most of the time. – Frank McCourt
We’ve had enough of the generals and movie stars. We want to hear about the ordinary people. – Frank McCourt
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. – Frank McCourt
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. – Frank McCourt
My childhood here… was very limited. So it was a long, long time before I actually went out to Brooklyn. – Frank McCourt
I worked in a number of high schools in New York, and I wound up at Stuyvesant High School, which is known nationally for producing brilliant scientists and mathematicians, but I had writing classes. I thought I was teaching. They thought I was teaching, but I was learning. – 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
Just luxuriate in a certain memory, and the details will come. It’s like a magnet attracting steel filings. – Frank McCourt
I just have to proceed as usual. No matter what happens, nothing helps with the writing of the next book. – Frank McCourt
Everyone has a story to tell. All you have to do is write it. But it’s not that easy. – Frank McCourt
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. – Frank McCourt