Literary Birthday – 19 August – Frank McCourt
Frank McCourt was born on 19 August 1930 and died on 19 July 2009.
Frank McCourt Quotes
- You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.
- Everyone has a story to tell. All you have to do is write it. But it’s not that easy.
- Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow. You’ll be amazed at what will come out on paper. I’m still learning what it is about the past that I want to write. I don’t worry about it. It will emerge. It will insist on being told.
- Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.
- Keep scribbling! Something will happen.
- Shakespeare is like mashed potatoes, you can never get enough of him.
- Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it.
- I’ve been writing in notebooks for 40 years or so.
- The happy childhood is hardly worth your while.
Frank McCourt was an Irish-American teacher and writer. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir, which details his impoverished childhood from Brooklyn to Limerick. The book also won the National Book Critics Circle award, and in 1999 it was adapted into a well-received film. McCourt’s voice combines humour, wit, and remarkable compassion as he explores themes of survival, education, and the redemptive power of storytelling. He also wrote the memoirs ’Tis and Teacher Man.
Source for image: Elke Wetzig (Elya), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_mccourt_20060912_(cropped).jpg
by Amanda Patterson
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