Quotes by Frank McCourt

About Frank McCourt:

Francis "Frank" McCourt was an Irish-American teacher and writer. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel Angela's Ashes, a tragicomic memoir of the misery and squalor of his childhood.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Frank McCourt

I know that big people don't like questions from children. They can ask all the questions they like, How's school? Are you a good boy? Did you say your prayers? but if you ask them did they say their prayers you might be hit on the head.

Frank McCourt

He sits in an old armchair in the corner covered with bits of blankets and a bucket behind the chair that stinks enough to make you sick and when you look at that old man in the dark corner you want to get a hose with hot water and strip him and wash...

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture...

Frank McCourt

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.

Frank McCourt

They said her duck recipe and the Chinese music were so dramatic everything else sounded anemic.

Frank McCourt

Just let them sit in the goddam sun. But the world won't let them because there's nothing more dangerous than letting old farts sit in the sun. They might be thinking. Same thing with kids. Keep 'em busy or they might start thinking.

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

First day of your teaching you are to stand at your classroom door and let your students know how happy you are to see them. Stand, I say. Any playwright will tell you that when the actor sits down the play sits down. The best move of all is to estab...

Frank McCourt

Les diría que escribieran una nota de despedida de ciento cincuenta palabras, como si fueran a suicidarse. Sería un buen modo de animarles a pensar en la vida en sí, pues Samuel Johnson dijo que pensar que nos van a ahorcar a la mañana siguiente ...

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

But I don't know how I'll ever get a college degree and rise in the world with no high school diploma and eyes like piss holes in the snow, as everyone tells me.

Frank McCourt

I felt so happy I could barely stay in my skin

Frank McCourt

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.

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

First of all there is always that artistic challenge of creating something. Or the particular experience to take slum life in that period and make something out of it in the form of a book. And then I felt some kind of responsibility to my family.

Frank McCourt

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

Frank McCourt

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

Author Bio

  • NameFrank McCourt
  • DescriptionIrish-American teacher and Pulitzer Prize–winning writer
  • BornAugust 19, 1930
  • DiedJuly 19, 2009
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionTeacher; Writer; Autobiographer
  • AwardsRome Prize; Pulitzer Prize For Biography Or Autobiography