Frank McCourt quote: "I think that the Army, being drafted, was my escape route. I was in the Army for two years, and then I got the G.I. Bill, which enabled me to go to NYU and which enabled me to become a teacher. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't had the G.I. Bill."

You don't have to go fight bulls in Spain like Hemingway to write something great, or go off to ...
FRANK MCCOURT

In public schools, classes are bloated - it's ridiculous.
FRANK MCCOURT

I'm a late bloomer.
FRANK MCCOURT

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

Actually, my mother and Alfie came for three weeks' Christmas vacation and stayed for 21 years. ...
FRANK MCCOURT

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

Sure, I went through my 'J'accuse' phase. I was so angry for so long, I could hardly hav...
FRANK MCCOURT

My dream was to have a Library of Congress catalogue number, that's all.
FRANK MCCOURT

I'm not one of those James Joyce intellectuals who can stand back and look at the whole edifice....
FRANK MCCOURT

O'Casey was writing about people in the streets and his mother and dying babies and poverty. So ...
FRANK MCCOURT

You sail into the harbor, and Staten Island is on your left, and then you see the Statue of Liberty....
FRANK MCCOURT

There was a kind of madness in the country. Eamon De Valera, the prime minister, had this vision of ...
FRANK MCCOURT

Autobiography should be more stringent. It should adhere more to the standards of journalism - assum...
FRANK MCCOURT

Just luxuriate in a certain memory, and the details will come. It's like a magnet attracting ste...
FRANK MCCOURT

I just wrote the book and was amazed and astounded that it became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer ...
FRANK MCCOURT

Something happened when the memoirs of so-called ordinary people, like myself, suddenly hit the best...
FRANK MCCOURT

A lot of people say writers start losing their powers after 60 or 65. But I look at the best-seller ...
FRANK MCCOURT

It's like a series of waves hitting you. First, getting excerpted in the 'New Yorker' la...
FRANK MCCOURT

Mam was always saying we had a simple diet: tea and bread, bread and tea, a liquid and a solid, a ba...
FRANK MCCOURT

He came to the States in 1963, I think with a view to making up with my mother, but that didn't ...
FRANK MCCOURT

I've had experiences on both sides of the ocean and various classrooms and bedrooms around New Y...
FRANK MCCOURT

I certainly couldn't have written 'Angela's Ashes' when my mother was alive, because...
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 admire certain priests and nuns who go off on their own and do God's work on their own, who he...
FRANK MCCOURT

The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to...
FRANK MCCOURT

I will have the faith... not the faith they want me to have, but another kind of faith which is of m...
FRANK MCCOURT

I was unloading sides of beef down on the docks when I decided enough was enough. By then, I'd d...
FRANK MCCOURT

For some reason, I wrote about the bed we slept in when I was a kid. It was a half-acre of misery, t...
FRANK MCCOURT

If ever you are to be visited by the Holy Ghost, you should make certain you're sitting beside a...
FRANK MCCOURT

[Another student, Ken, the son of Korean immigrants, enrages his ambitious father when he decides to...
FRANK MCCOURT

The part of Limerick we lived in is Georgian, you know, those Georgian houses. You see them in pictu...
FRANK MCCOURT

I had no accomplishments except surviving. But that isn't enough in the community where I came f...
FRANK MCCOURT

The uncluttered life is the key to a good memory.
FRANK MCCOURT

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

We were supposed to stay over in Boston, but when Scribners heard I'd won the Pulitzer, they tol...
FRANK MCCOURT

If I had millions and millions and millions of dollars, I'd leave a large portion to the 42nd St...
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...
FRANK MCCOURT

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

He says, you have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everyth...
FRANK MCCOURT

I wanted to avoid all that literary stuff. I didn't want the self pity of 'The Portrait,'...
FRANK MCCOURT

I worked in a number of high schools in New York, and I wound up at Stuyvesant High School, which is...
FRANK MCCOURT

We don't look at teachers as scholars the way they do in Europe. In Spain you're called a pr...
FRANK MCCOURT

The happy childhood is hardly worth your while.
FRANK MCCOURT

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

I was tormented. Fear and trembling. And a sense of doom. A literal belief in hell. Hell for eternit...
FRANK MCCOURT

There were positive things about the church, that is, in the European cultural sense, the architectu...
FRANK MCCOURT

We decided to put in a park and picnic area. It will accommodate about 500 people for groups. We wan...
FRANK MCCOURT

I'm not one of those James Joyce intellectuals who can stand back and look at the whole edifice... I...
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've stated before that my number one priority as the steward of the Dodgers is winning, and I belie...
FRANK MCCOURT

The Dodgers are at a crossroads here. I'm very mindful of this historic franchise's tradition of gre...
FRANK MCCOURT

This guy's been affiliated with winners all his life, and consistent winners. The record, I think, s...
FRANK MCCOURT

I am not living the American Dream; I am living the American fantasy.
FRANK MCCOURT

He has a high level of integrity, he's honest, hard-working, energetic, trustworthy, loyal, takes re...
FRANK MCCOURT

Teenagers have two moods: Horny and Hungry.
FRANK MCCOURT

I'm very mindful of this franchise's tradition of greatness.
FRANK MCCOURT

This is an iconic team in Dodger history. It's not just any other team.
FRANK MCCOURT

Viva Los Dodgers has become one of the most anticipated events of the year. We're thrilled to contin...
FRANK MCCOURT

Our high expectations were not met.
FRANK MCCOURT

I thought I'd go mad. At one point I thought I'd put a plastic bag over my head and jump into the Hu...
FRANK MCCOURT

What saved me was my accent, I think I was a bit of a novelty. Otherwise, I certainly didn't have th...
FRANK MCCOURT

I admire certain priests and nuns who go off on their own and do God's work on their own, who help i...
FRANK MCCOURT

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

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

I'm more inclined to go back now because Limerick has changed so much. One of the reasons it was suc...
FRANK MCCOURT

I'd just go into a room in my memory and just look around and start seeing things that I'd forgotten...
FRANK MCCOURT

I would just circle around certain incidents, like a vulture with carrion, until it yielded up some ...
FRANK MCCOURT

The original architects aimed for what was really a quintessential, mid-century, California type of ...
FRANK MCCOURT

I had moments with my father that were exquisite - the stories he told me about Cuchulain, the mytho...
FRANK MCCOURT

Some, like Mother Teresa, are born with a gene to help the poor, and some are born with a gene to wr...
FRANK MCCOURT

When I got out of the army, I had the G.I. Bill. Since I had no high school education or anything li...
FRANK MCCOURT

Limerick gained a reputation for piety, but we knew it was only the rain.
FRANK MCCOURT

I'm always a great student of writers' work habits. Balzac sat at his desk dressed in a monk...
FRANK MCCOURT

He has character, integrity, honesty, loyalty. ... He's trustworthy and accountable. He respects the...
FRANK MCCOURT

He has character, integrity, honesty, loyalty. ... He's trustworthy and accountable,
FRANK MCCOURT

The poverty and the influence of the church were very damaging. It damaged all of us emotionally. To...
FRANK MCCOURT

Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow.
FRANK MCCOURT

When I first came to New York and saw Italian families and their displays of affection, I was taken ...
FRANK MCCOURT

Before the famine, which was in the 1840s, that was an emotional turning point... There are various ...
FRANK MCCOURT

All those smells... and the kids, we were the great unwashed... nobody ever knew what a shower was.....
FRANK MCCOURT

The undertaking here to restore this great ballpark -- the fourth oldest in all the Majors -- is rea...
FRANK MCCOURT

And, of course, they've always condemned dancing. You know, you might touch a member of the oppo...
FRANK MCCOURT

After a full belly all is poetry.
FRANK MCCOURT

Early in my teaching days, the kids asked me the meaning of a poem. I replied, 'I don't know...
FRANK MCCOURT

But I don't know how I'll ever get a college degree and rise in the world with no high school diplom...
FRANK MCCOURT

Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere...
FRANK MCCOURT

Even when I went to the Lion's Head in the Village, where all you journalists would hang out, I ...
FRANK MCCOURT

With Angela drawn to the hangdog look and Malachy lonely after three months in jail, there was bound...
FRANK MCCOURT

Clarke, define resplendent. I think it’s shining, sir. Pithy, Clarke, but adequate. McCourt, give ...
FRANK MCCOURT

Then he placed on my tongue the wafer, the body and blood of Jesus. At last, at last. It’s on my t...
FRANK MCCOURT

The English wouldn't give you the steam of their piss.
FRANK MCCOURT

There are boys here who have to mend their shoes whatever way they can. There are boys in this class...
FRANK MCCOURT

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

Women stand with their arms folded chatting. They don't sit because all they do is stay at home, tak...
FRANK MCCOURT

When she's not talking to him the house is heavy and cold and we know we're not supposed to talk to ...
FRANK MCCOURT

You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind....
FRANK MCCOURT

If ever you're getting a dog, Francis, make sure it's a Buddhist. Good-natured dogs, the Buddhists. ...
FRANK MCCOURT

Come here till I comb your hair, said Grandma. Look at that mop, it won't lie down. You didn't get t...
FRANK MCCOURT

I asked my dad what afflicted meant and he said 'Sickness son, and things that don't fit.
FRANK MCCOURT

You never know when you might come home and find Mam sitting by the fire chatting with a woman and a...
FRANK MCCOURT

I know that big people don't like questions from children. They can ask all the questions they like,...
FRANK MCCOURT

He says, you have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everyth...
FRANK MCCOURT

I am for who i was in the beginning but now is present and i exist in the future.
FRANK MCCOURT

There’s no use saying anything in the schoolyard because there’s always someone with an answer a...
FRANK MCCOURT

A mother's love is a blessing
No matter where you roam.
Keep her while you have her,
...
FRANK MCCOURT

I say, Billy, what’s the use in playing croquet when you’re doomed?
He says, Frankie, what�...
FRANK MCCOURT

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable chil...
FRANK MCCOURT

Love her as in childhood
Through feeble, old and grey.
For you’ll never miss a mother’...
FRANK MCCOURT

I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in ...
FRANK MCCOURT

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

People want real-life stories.
FRANK MCCOURT

They all went into the bar business. Which was a mistake, because they began to sip at the merchandi...
FRANK MCCOURT

You have to give yourself credit, not too much because that would be bragging.
FRANK MCCOURT

I never expected to write a book about a slum in Ireland that was going to catapult me, as they say,...
FRANK MCCOURT

First of all there is always that artistic challenge of creating something. Or the particular experi...
FRANK MCCOURT

I became a teacher all right. I wanted to become a teacher because I had a misconception about it. I...
FRANK MCCOURT

Scatter my ashes on the Shannon.
FRANK MCCOURT

It's not just Catholic versus Protestant any more. I read somewhere that in any construction site in...
FRANK MCCOURT

We were just slogging on from day to day and making the best of it. But with a light at the end of t...
FRANK MCCOURT

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'...
FRANK MCCOURT

Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow...
FRANK MCCOURT

St. Patrick, bringing the religion to Ireland, this is what we should celebrate.
FRANK MCCOURT

In Limerick, a family that was dysfunctional was one who could afford to drink but didn't.
MALACHY MCCOURT

A lie to me is a dream that might come true.
MALACHY MCCOURT

Imagination in the child is powerful. Reading and laughter and love are essential in our lives.
MALACHY MCCOURT

Live every day as if it's going to be your last, and one day, you'll be right.
MALACHY MCCOURT

I had the taste of the alcohol since I was 11. It allowed me to be clever, charming and to behave ou...
MALACHY MCCOURT

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
MALACHY MCCOURT

I hope the Catholics don't get a hold of him and make him a saint. That would make him most miserabl...
MALACHY MCCOURT

It would take far too long to get in and out of low-cut dresses.
MALACHY MCCOURT

A kind of cross between Helen Traubel and Martha Raye an uncanny amalgam of Joan Sutherland and Phyl...
JAMES MCCOURT

That second floor was a wonderful adventure. It was cozy. But at the same time we had this feeling o...
MALACHY MCCOURT

[Still, it was satisfying to see them humbled.] They're like dirigibles, ... They look huge floating...
MALACHY MCCOURT

There's potential for it being soon. The reality is that there are only 'X' positions available, so ...
JAMIE MCCOURT

Women have a wonderful opportunity to be a central part of baseball, and if I can help reach some of...
JAMIE MCCOURT

Baseball has always been ahead of the game in promoting diversity, and the Dodgers have always been ...
JAMIE MCCOURT

Vin Scully is synonymous with Dodger baseball and has been for generations of fans in Los Angeles an...
JAMIE MCCOURT

Tonight is really to introduce them to all the opportunities programmatically that we've got going. ...
JAMIE MCCOURT

I loved, loved, loved baseball. I would drag my dad to Orioles games, and I would always keep score.
JAMIE MCCOURT

About a quarter of the skin of her eye had already been eaten away.
JAMIE MCCOURT

We talked about how we were thinking of making this move and what it could mean and Frank says, 'But...
JAMIE MCCOURT

I didn't do that, did I?
MALACHY MCCOURT

boys, girls and music . . why do they need gin?
FRANK

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
ANNE FRANK

The best music happens when you have a personal connection to it. That same philosophy can extend to...
FRANK IERO

I'm not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I'm not looking for the secret to life... I...
FRANK SINATRA

The best revenge is massive success.
FRANK SINATRA

There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.
FRANK ZAPPA

Mobile video is now a reality and a force to be reckoned with. I think it is essential to think abou...
ZE FRANK

I've been super impressed with what BuzzFeed has done on Facebook with inspiring list posts and ...
ZE FRANK

We have this incredible ability to communicate with each other. I want to play around with it, see w...
ZE FRANK

For some reason, we stopped getting gold stars at some age. It's time to bring them back.
ZE FRANK

If you want to get into the creative world, you have to just keep flogging away even when nobody'...
ZE FRANK

I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your...
ZE FRANK

YouTube has become more mature, both as a platform and as a community. So much content has been adde...
ZE FRANK

I'm fascinated by simple joy.
ZE FRANK

We can't all be like Ryan Seacrest... the perfect platform manifestation of a human. I don't...
ZE FRANK

What better way to connect with people than by staring and talking straight at them? Don't blink...
ZE FRANK

I'm obsessed with media and the way audiences can become creative participants.
ZE FRANK

I've been fascinated by the Internet from the very start. In 2001, I had made a funny black-and-...
ZE FRANK

In an ever-changing technological landscape, where today's platforms are not tomorrow's plat...
ZE FRANK

Trust is a confusing thing. It seems so simple, but when you try to pin it down, it can be so elusiv...
ZE FRANK

Anything that makes you feel the most alone also has the greatest power to connect you.
ZE FRANK

Most of us yearn for really intimate, healthy, in-person relationships. People have a deep desire to...
ZE FRANK

The naked mole is, like, the ugliest freakin' creature in the world. It is so radically, unbelie...
ZE FRANK

When I was young, I had this feeling that there was this handbook that I had never gotten that expla...
ZE FRANK

On street corners everywhere, people are looking at their cell phones, and it's easy to dismiss ...
ZE FRANK

I studied neuroscience at the cellular level, so I was looking at learning and memory in the visual ...
ZE FRANK

The story of technology seems to go up and then retract into simplicity again.
ZE FRANK

I think this is one of the greatest gifts of this era: Because of the Internet, we can start to type...
ZE FRANK

Let me think about the people who I care about the most, and how when they fail or disappoint me... ...
ZE FRANK

A good procrastination should feel like you're inserting lots and lots of commas into the senten...
ZE FRANK

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
FRANK ZAPPA

What is a friend? I will tell you... it is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.
FRANK CRANE

My grandfather was smart and had a whole lot of pride. He didn't speak a terrible amount, but yo...
FRANK OCEAN

When I was a kid, my father didn't really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer; he ...
FRANK GEHRY

There's enough pressure in life without seeking competition. That makes it double pressure.
FRANK BRUNO

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?
ANNE FRANK

I live in a crazy time.
ANNE FRANK

For some reason, Superman seems to be held to higher standards on the subject of secret/super identi...
GARY FRANK

Experience has taught me how important it is to just keep going, focusing on running fast and relaxe...
FRANK SHORTER

Don't follow trends, start trends.
FRANK CAPRA

Time is money, especially when you are talking to a lawyer or buying a commercial.
FRANK DANE

I searched for years I found no love. I'm sure that love will never be a product of plasticity.
FRANK ZAPPA

I was a thug.
FRANK OCEAN

A good motto is: use friendliness but do not use your friends.
FRANK CRANE

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with t...
FRANK OCEAN

I always say that I don't want to be sentimental, that the photographs shouldn't be sentimen...
ROBERT FRANK

I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above al...
ROBERT FRANK

You do your work as a photographer and everything becomes past. Words are more like thoughts; the ph...
ROBERT FRANK

It is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.
ROBERT FRANK

There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind of photography...
ROBERT FRANK

If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm.
FRANK LANE

You gotta love livin', baby, 'cause dyin' is a pain in the ass.
FRANK SINATRA

I just can't think how I would go on without children having lost Edith already... It's too ...
OTTO FRANK

We all had lots of stories of our sad experiences - they mourned the death of my wife with me - but ...
OTTO FRANK

I think there are a number of bishops - and I put Cardinal Mahony in that category - who listen too ...
FRANK KEATING

Bishops are like umpires. You have to have them to call the close decisions.
FRANK BUTLER

We've all read, I'm sure, a Superman book where we didn't really feel like we knew the c...
GARY FRANK

Christopher Reeve so completely inhabited the character Superman when he was in that costume, and th...
GARY FRANK

I think that the Army, being drafted, was my escape route. I was in the Army for two years, and then I got the G.I. Bill, which enabled me to go to NYU and which enabled me to become a teacher. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't had the G.I. Bill.

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Frank McCourt

I think that the Army, being drafted, was my escape route. I was in the Army for two years, and then I got the G.I. Bill, which enabled me to go to NYU and which enabled me to become a teacher. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't had the G.I. Bill.

Frank McCourt

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