272 Quotes by Frank McCourt

I'm always a great student of writers' work habits. Balzac sat at his desk dressed in a monk's robe, and he always had to have a rotten apple on his desk. The smell of the apple inspired him somehow.

A funeral was a great form of entertainment. A wake was a great form of entertainment.

Ireland, once you live there, you're seduced by it.

We don't look at teachers as scholars the way they do in Europe. In Spain you're called a professor if you're a high school teacher, and they pay teachers - they pay teachers in Europe.

I would dream of going up to the 'New York Times' and asking them if I could please be a copy boy or let me scrub the toilets or something like that. But I couldn't rise to those heights.

I can do no more than tell the truth.

People want real-life stories.

People who think I have insulted Ireland or Limerick or my family have not read the book!

We had nothing, no television, no radio, nothing to get in the way. We read by the streetlight at the top of the lane, and we acted out the stories.