A mother's love is a blessing No matter where you roam. Keep her while you have her, You'll miss her when she's gone -- Angela's Ashes.

People 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.

I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book.

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

I am not living the American Dream; I am living the American fantasy.

My childhood here... was very limited. So it was a long, long time before I actually went out to Brooklyn.

Shakespeare is like mashed potatoes, you can never get enough of him.