Quote

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

Frank McCourt

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Frank McCourt
Age: 78 †
Born: 1930
Born: August 19
Died: 2009
Died: July 19
Autobiographer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Francis McCourt
American
Hyphen
Else
Hyphens
Someone
Irish
Enough
German
Something
Invented
Always
Hadn
Along
Wonder

More quotes by Frank McCourt

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Shakespeare is like mashed potatoes, you can never get enough of him.
Frank McCourt
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I am teaching. Storytelling is teaching
Frank McCourt
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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.
Frank McCourt
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If you were mean to your parents, they'd give you a good belt in the gob and send you flying across the room.
Frank McCourt
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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
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Teacher? I never dreamed I could rise so high in the world
Frank McCourt
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Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow. You'll be amazed at what will come out on paper. I'm still learning what it is about the past that I want to write. I don't worry about it. It will emerge. It will insist on being told.
Frank McCourt
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There's nothing sillier in the world than a teacher telling you don't do it after you already did it.
Frank McCourt
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The sky is the limit. You never have the same experience twice.
Frank McCourt
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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.
Frank McCourt
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When I act tough they listen politely till the spasm passes. They know.
Frank McCourt
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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
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It’s lovely to know that the world can’t interfere with the inside of your head.
Frank McCourt
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The main thing I am interested in is my experience as a teacher.
Frank McCourt
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I'm more interested in writing than in performing.
Frank McCourt
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Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's been a minute since my last confession.
Frank McCourt
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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.
Frank McCourt
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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.
Frank McCourt
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I asked my dad what afflicted meant and he said 'Sickness son, and things that don't fit.'
Frank McCourt
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The happy childhood is hardly worth your while.
Frank McCourt