“There's no use asking more questions. If you ask a question they tell you it's a mystery, you'll understand when you grow up, be a good boy, ask your mother, ask your father, for the love o' Jesus leave me alone, go out and play.”

“In all my years at Stuyvesant only one parent, a mother, asked if her son was enjoying school. I said yes. He seemed to be enjoying himself. She smiled, stood up, said, Thank you, and left. One parent in all those years.”

“I don't give a fiddler's fart!”

“When I asked her about her days in Brooklyn she doled out scraps and then went silent. What was the use? The past is the past and it’s dangerous to go back.”

“Through journal writing, you’ll discover how to get more benefit from everything that you’ve experienced. In the process, you’ll discover that what you’ve learned from being a survivor has enriched your life beyond anything you’ve ever imagined.”

“For many writers, the journal is their opportunity to be honest with them- selves—the greatest test of all.”

“Also, said Freddie, I work nights to make a living and pay my way through college. You know what that’s like, Mr. McCourt. I don’t see what that has to do with your writing. Also, it’s not easy when you’re black in this society. Oh, Christ, Freddie. It’s not easy being anything in this society. All right. You want an A? You’ll get it. I don’t want to be accused of bigotry. No, I don’t want it just because you’re pissed off or because I’m black. I want it because I deserve it. I”

“It's lovely to know the world can't interfere with the inside of your head.”

“There's no use asking more questions. If you ask a question they tell you it's a mystery, you'll understand when you grow up, be a good boy, ask your mother, ask your father, for the love o' Jesus leave me alone, go out and play.”

“I want to tell them I won't be able to die for the Faith because I'm already booked to die for Ireland.”

“You are never to let anybody slam the door in your face again.”

“If everyone moved on and up and out who would teach the children?”

“Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it... you might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.”

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

A man that is young in years, may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. But that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages.

Worthy books are not companions - they are solitudes: we lose ourselves in them and all our cares.

Men fear death as children fear to go into the dark and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

It is not the lie that passes through the mind, but the lie that sinks in and settles in it, that does the hurt.

There be none of the affections, which have been noted to fascinate or bewitch, but love and envy. They both have vehement wishes; they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions; and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the present of the objects; which are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such thing there be.

A man is but what he knows.

The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labors; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death.

For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

There is a wisdom in this; beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.

Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

All rising to great place is by a winding stair.

God Almighty first planted a garden.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.

Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

A healthy body is the guest-chamber of the soul; a sick, its prison.

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.

It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.

There are two ways of spreading light - to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

Religion being the chief band of human society, it is a happy thing, when itself is well contained within the true band of unity.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

For the discovery of a man's self, by the tracts of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying; by how much it is many times more marked, and believed, than a man's words.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.