Frank McCourt Quotes

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Frank McCourt

Profession : Author

Birth : August 19, 1930

The uncluttered life is the key to a good memory.

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

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

My childhood here... was very limited. So it was a long, long time before I actually went out to Brooklyn.

Frank McCourt

And, of course, they've always condemned dancing. You know, you might touch a member of the opposite sex. And you might get excited and you might do something natural.

Frank McCourt

There's so much absurdity. Poverty is so absurd.

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

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

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

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.

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'm more interested in writing than in performing.

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book.

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

If somebody wants me to speak in, say, Chicago, a limousine picks me up at the door to brings me to the airport. I fly at the front of the plane, and a limousine meets me at the other end to take me to a grand hotel, and usually an envelope is left for me with a per diem, maybe $150-a-day walking around money, and then I go home.

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

We were supposed to stay over in Boston, but when Scribners heard I'd won the Pulitzer, they told me to get on a plane - that Katie Couric wanted my body. And when Katie Couric wants your body, you get moving right away.

Frank McCourt