272 Quotes by Frank McCourt

Limerick gained a reputation for piety, but we knew it was only the rain.

But, Grandma, this teacher is Irish.Oh, yeah? well, they're the worst, always talking and singing about green things or getting shot and hung.

I think my father is like the Holy Trinity with three people in him, the one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the stories and the prayers, and then the one who does the bad thing and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland.

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

Teaching is bringing the news.

I am teaching. Storytelling is teaching.

Everything in my head was secondhand, too: Catholicism; Ireland's sad history, a litany of suffering and martyrdom drummed into me by priests, schoolmasters and parents who knew no better.

There's something hostile about the way they enter and leave the room that tells you what they think of you. It could be your imagination and you try to figure out what will bring them over to your side. You try lessons that worked with other classes but even that doesn't help and it's because of that chemistry. They know when they have you on the run. They have instincts that detect your frustrations.

You can't teach in a vacuum. A good teacher relates the material to real life. You understand that, don't you?