I don't absolve my father completely of his responsibility for what he did to us I feel compassion, maybe. He had his demons. But I still can't understand how a man can walk away from children. And leave them to starve, as we nearly did, if it wasn't for my mother going out and begging.
Frank McCourtThereโs no use saying anything in the schoolyard because thereโs always someone with an answer and thereโs nothing you can do but punch them in the nose and if you were to punch everyone who has an answer youโd be punching morning noon and night.
Frank McCourtPeople everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying school masters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all -- we were wet.
Frank McCourtWhere did I get the nerve to think I could handle American teenagers? Ignorance. That's where I got the nerve.
Frank McCourt