64 Quotes by Malachy McCourt

To me a saint is a severely edited sinner. That's what I think.

That's one part of oppression is to make sure you are a shameful, shamed human being. That takes care of the past.

The future has to do with fear. Don't attempt to come up here. Don't attempt to go forward, you were nobody, you are nobody, and you'll always be nothing, so don't even think about coming here because if you do, something awful will happen to you.

To be Irish today is the abandonment of shame and the younger people are moving it out and they're moving the fear away. They're not afraid, they're adventurous.

I stay in the present, so I don't know about the future.

I am full of theories that are based on a very liquid foundation, because I used to be a drinker.

The word is a sound of some sort and that's where the energy comes from.

When an English man speaks well, for example now, and this is another way of putting us down, they say he's "eloquent" you see. "Oh, eloquent chap they are!" An Irish person speak well, they say, "Ah, you have the gift of the gab." "Ah, you kissed the blarney stone." You see, all of this putting us down.

I failed everything in school. I left when I was 13 because I had no comprehension of what the hell they were talking about up there at the blackboard. I must have that ADD thing. But, listening to people I thought, that's wonderful to be able to tell a story.