Frank McCourt Quotes

Author Image

Frank McCourt

Profession : Author

Birth : August 19, 1930

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

Frank McCourt

It's like a series of waves hitting you. First, getting excerpted in the 'New Yorker' last summer, then getting published, then the best-seller list, the award, the movie deal, now this, a Pulitzer.

Frank McCourt

When I first went up to see my editor, I was with my agent, and my editor said, 'Well, what have you been doing all these years?' And my agent said, 'He's been in recovery. From his childhood.'

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

When I came to America, I dreamed bigger dreams.

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

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?

Frank McCourt

I think there are two cities in the world - New York and Rome.

Frank McCourt

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

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

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

Scatter my ashes on the Shannon.

Frank McCourt

Certain citizens claimed I had disgraced the fair name of the city of Limerick, that I had attacked the church, that I had despoiled my mother's name, and that if I returned to Limerick, I would surely be found hanging from a lamppost.

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

O'Casey was writing about people in the streets and his mother and dying babies and poverty. So that astounded me because I thought you could only write about English matters.

Frank McCourt

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.

Frank McCourt

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.

Frank McCourt

I was a houseman, the lowest. I was just above - in the hierarchy of jobs, I was just above the Puerto Rican dishwashers - just above, so I felt superior to them.

Frank McCourt

I learned the significance of my own insignificant life.

Frank McCourt

I think there's something about the Irish experience - that we had to have a sense of humor or die.

Frank McCourt