Quotes from Frank McCourt

I hated school in Ireland.

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

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.

Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow.

The sky is the limit. You never have the same experience twice.

Actually, my mother and Alfie came for three weeks' Christmas vacation and stayed for 21 years. I guess my mother never went back because she was lonely.

Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

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

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.

Teacher my arse. I'd be better off on the docks and the warehouses, lifting, hauling, cursing, eating hero sandwiches, drinking beer, chasing waterfront floozies. At least I'd be with my own kind, my own class of people, not getting above meself, acushla.

You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.

It's lovely to know that the world can't interfere with the inside of your head.

He says, you have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can't make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.

The master says it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it's a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there's anyone in the world who would like us to live.

Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.

I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words.

Love her as in childhood Through feeble, old and grey. For you'll never miss a mother's love Till she's buried beneath the clay.

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

After a full belly all is poetry.

It's not enough to be American. You always have to be something else, Irish-American, German-American, and you'd wonder how they'd get along if someone hadn't invented the hyphen

I say, Billy, what's the use in playing croquet when you're doomed? He says, Frankie, what's the use of not playing croquet when you're doomed?

I told her tea bags were just a convenience for people with busy lives and she said no one is so busy they can't take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don't deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put into this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?

A mother's love is a blessing No matter where you roam. Keep her while you have her, You'll miss her when she's gone.

Stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it.