Frank McCourt

"We don't look at teachers as scholars the way they do in Europe. In Spain you're called a professor if you're a high school teacher, and they pay teachers - they pay teachers in Europe."

"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."

"Kids all want to look cool, as if knowledge is a great burden, but they're always looking around. They remember."

"Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow."

"I think there's something about the Irish experience - that we had to have a sense of humor or die."