Frank McCourt

Actually, my mother and Alfie came for three weeks' Christmas vacation and stayed for 21 years. I guess my mother never went back because she was lonely. ”

In public schools, classes are bloated - it's ridiculous. ”

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 thought everything would be different in America. It wasn't. ”

If somebody wants me to speak in, say, Chicago, a limousine picks me up at the door to brings me to the airport. I fly at the front of the plane, and a limousine meets me at the other end to take me to a grand hotel, and usually an envelope is left for me with a per diem, maybe $150-a-day walking around money, and then I go home. ”

I don't see myself as either Irish or American, I'm a New Yorker. ”

I certainly couldn't have written 'Angela's Ashes' when my mother was alive, because she would have been ashamed. ”

Certain citizens claimed I had disgraced the fair name of the city of Limerick, that I had attacked the church, that I had despoiled my mother's name, and that if I returned to Limerick, I would surely be found hanging from a lamppost. ”

They tell me I'm on 'Politically Incorrect' with Ollie North. That should be a lot of fun. ”

I'm more interested in writing than in performing. ”