Irish - Author | August 19, 1930 - July 19, 2009
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
GoodCommunityFoodAmericaDoing
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.
MeSnakeProcessSlowStandLook
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.
MeHellChurchDownNowNothing
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.
WorkMotherThinkViewBrooklynWay
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.
MotherVacationLonelyBackThree
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.
BusinessMistakeBackMoreBarWell
I'm more interested in writing than in performing.
WritingMorePerformingInterested
The main thing I am interested in is my experience as a teacher.
TeacherExperienceI AmInterested
I can't go too much into my domestic life because there are ex-wives ready to do me in.
LifeMeReadyToo MuchGoBecause
I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book.
BookThinkI ThinkTitleBefore
We never really had any kind of a Christmas. This is one part where my memory fails me completely.
MemoryMeKindChristmasNeverPart
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.
HomeMoneyMeDoorFlySpeak
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