Frank McCourt Quotes

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.

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

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

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 learned the significance of my own insignificant life.

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

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 -- Angela's Ashes.

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

Keep scribbling! Something will happen.

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

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.

I don't believe in happiness anyway... it's too much of an American pastime, this search for happiness. Just forget happiness and enjoy your misery.

Where did I get the nerve to think I could handle American teenagers? Ignorance. That's where I got the nerve.

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.

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

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

Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow.

Your mind is a treasure house that you should stock well and it's the one part of you the world can't interfere with.

The main thing I am interested in is my experience as a teacher.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's been a minute since my last confession.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The happy childhood is hardly worth your while.

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.

There's nothing sillier in the world than a teacher telling you don't do it after you already did it.

When I act tough they listen politely till the spasm passes. They know.

They can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in the snow they'd be lost forever.

I can't go back. The past won't go away in this family.

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.

I'm more interested in writing than in performing.

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

Oh, God above, if heaven has a taste it must be an egg with butter and salt, and after the egg is there anything in the world lovelier than fresh warm bread and a mug of sweet golden tea?

There are so many ways of saying Hi. Hiss it, trill it, bark it, sing it, bellow it, laugh it, cough it. A simple stroll in the hallway calls for paragraphs, sentences in your head, decisions galore.

Teacher? I never dreamed I could rise so high in the world

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Shakespeare is like mashed potatoes, you can never get enough of him.

If you were mean to your parents, they'd give you a good belt in the gob and send you flying across the room.

I am teaching. Storytelling is teaching

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.