Quotes from 'Tis A Memoir

Frank McCourt ·  495 pages

Rating: (48.5K votes)


“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, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“I told her tea bags were just a convenience for people with busy lives and she said no one is so busy they can't take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don't deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put into this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“...you, the privileged, the chosen, the pampered, with nothing to do but go to school, hang out, do a little studying, go to college, get into a money-making racket, grow into your fat forties, still whining, still complaining, when there are millions around the world who'd offer fingers and toes to be in your seats, nicely clothed, well fed, with the world by the balls.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“I can't go back. The past won't go away in this family...”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“Andy says, I don't understand how they can give loans to people who want to spend two weeks lying on the sand at the goddam Jersey shore and then turn down a woman with three kids hanging on by her fingernails.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir



“They can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in the snow they'd be lost forever.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“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, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“No one is so busy they can't take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don't deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put in this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“I'm in New York, land of the free and home of the brave, but I'm supposed to behave as if I were in Limerick at all times.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“I felt so happy I could barely stay in my skin”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir



“Here I am looking at my lovely ten-year-old daughter, Maggie, in her white dress, singing Protestant hymns with the choir at the Plymouth Church of the Brethren when I should be at Mass praying for the repose of the soul of my mother, Angela McCourt, mother of seven, believer, sinner, though when I contemplate her seventy-three years on this earth I can’t believe the Lord God Almighty on His throne would even dream of consigning her to the flames. A God like that wouldn’t deserve the time of day.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“But I don't know how I'll ever get a college degree and rise in the world with no high school diploma and eyes like piss holes in the snow, as everyone tells me.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“The boys from Staten Island would fill more body bags than Stuyvesant could ever imagine. Mechanics and plumbers had to fight while college students shook indignant fists, fornicated in the fields of Woodstock and sat in.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“Menen Horacen luo ja puristan hänenkin kättään. En pysty sanomaan mitään, koska tunnen jollakin merkillisellä tavalla rakastavani häntä ja toivon että hän olisi isäni, eikä silloin ole helppo puhua. Hän ei sano mitään koska tietää hyvin että tällaisina hetkinä sanoilla ei ole merkitystä. Hän vain taputtaa minua olalle, ja viimeinen mitä Port Warehousesissa kuulen on Eddie Lynchin ääni kun hän sanoo miehille takaisin töihin siitä, senkin vetelä mulkkulauma.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“Dolores asuu talossa, jonka pienellä etupihalla on neitsyt Marian patsas ja vaaleanpunainen lintupatsas. Seisomme pienen rautaportin luona ja minä en oikein tiedä pitäisikö nyt suudella häntä jolloin hän saattaisi innostua niin että saattaisimme hiippailla jonkin puun taakse kiihotusta harjoittamaan, mutta samassa kuuluu sisältä karjaisu Jumalauta, Dolores, äkkiä sisään sieltä, jo on otsaa kun tuolla lailla perkele pikkutunneilla kotiin lampsitaan, ja sano sille perkeleen turvenuijalle että ottaa jalat alleen ja juoksee henkensä edestä, ja Dolores sanoo vain oi ja juoksee sisään.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir



“When the dark clouds flutter like bats in my head I wish I could open a window and release them.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“Haloo, kuuluuko? Minulla on tässä munakello päällä ja teillä on nyt kolme minuuttia aikaa kertoa miten minä saan nuo perkeleen neiti suo anteeksi pulut kuriin etteivät ne paneskele kaiken aikaa minun ilmastointilaitteeni päällä tuolla ikkunan ulkopuolella. Kaiken päivää saa kuunnella niiden huhuhuuta niin että hulluksi meinaa tulla ja sitten ne paskantavat ikkunat umpeen. Ai ette pysty heti sanomaan? Pitää selvittää ensin? Mitä siinä on selvittämistä? Pulut rietastelevat minun ilmastointilaitteellani ja teidän pitää ruveta selvittämään. Valitan, munakello sanoo että kolme minuuttia on kulunut. Hyvästi.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“For once, mam, my bladder isn't near my eye and why isn't it?”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


“I'm sitting up in the bed with my knees pulled to my chest and there are tears that won't come to my eyes but beat instead like a small sea around my heart.”
― Frank McCourt, quote from 'Tis A Memoir


About the author

Frank McCourt
Born place: in Brooklyn, New York, The United States
Born date August 19, 1930
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“All right, you caught me. I'm secretly obsessed with you and spend all my free time writing about you in my journal. 'Dear Diary, today Will was an ass for the 467th day in a row. He's so dreamy”
― Elizabeth Scott, quote from Perfect You


“We need to laugh at the irrationality of evil, for in doing so we deny evil's power over us, diminish its influence in the world, and tarnish the allure it has for some people.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Life Expectancy


“This was sending me out so much further than I had ever expected: a place beyond strength.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Lunar Park


“She’s looking at him with something like wonder. “Why do you weep, Jack?” “The past,” he says. “Isn’t that always what does it?” And thinks of his mother, sitting by the window, smoking a cigarette, and listening while the radio plays “Crazy Arms.” Yes, it’s always the past. That’s where the hurt is, all you can’t get over.”
― Stephen King, quote from Black House


“I’m not a child. Don’t talk to me like I am. (Kiara)
No, you’re worse. You’re an adult who still thinks the world is a beautiful place, filled with people who will help you just for the sake of being nice. Wake up and smell the bloodbath and humility the rest of us have to cope with. (Syn)”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Born of Night


Interesting books

Ella Enchanted
(359K)
Ella Enchanted
by Gail Carson Levine
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
(171.6K)
The Wind-Up Bird Chr...
by Haruki Murakami
The Sound and the Fury
(139.2K)
The Sound and the Fu...
by William Faulkner
Man's Search for Meaning
(226.4K)
Man's Search for Mea...
by Viktor E. Frankl
The Shack
(458.8K)
The Shack
by William Paul Young
Blindness
(145K)
Blindness
by José Saramago

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.