Frank McCourt Quotes

I don't like rats, but there's not much else I don't like. The problem with rats is they have no fear of human beings, they're loaded with foul diseases, they would run the place given half the chance, and I've had them leap out of a lavatory while I've been sitting on it.

I've stayed in hotels where you were scared to even put your feet on the floor, or had to sleep in a chair.

I turned to my own bunk and examined it with a kind of appalled fascination. If the mattress stains were anything to go by, a previous user had not so much suffered from incontinence as rejoiced in it. He had evidently included the pillow in his celebrations.

Some people love Sundays; I don't, particularly. I used to rather dread them when I was younger. I was brought up on Sunday roasts, which I've always loathed. If I didn't finish my meat, I had to sit with it for most of the afternoon. No wonder I'm a vegetarian now.

I always remember my childhood house with happy memories. There was a beautiful garden, and outside my bedroom window was a jasmine vine which would open in the evenings, giving off a divine scent.

I once stayed in a roach-infested hotel in Istanbul for a work trip. I had to share my room with a male model, and pointedly all we talked about was our other halves.

I was born in West Plains, and we lived here till I was one. Then my dad needed to get a job, so we moved to the St. Louis area. I lived in St. Charles, on the Missouri River, till I was 15.

I grew up in the suburbs north of Atlanta. I had an amazing childhood, and I still go back to my home in Atlanta often.

I grew up outside of DC, New York state, and Connecticut.

So they all went away from the little log house. The shutters were over the windows, so the little house could not see them go. It stayed there inside the log fence, behind the two big oak trees that in the summertime had made green roofs for Mary and Laura to play under.

The house where I grew up in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles was like a dream - even though my family faced threats after my father bought it in August 1948.

Kennel of filth

Things are more unpleasant here every day. The Senate chamber is filled with lice. It makes my head itch to think of it. The building is like one grand water closet. Every hole and every corner is defiled.

I dreaded the dance scene in 'Love Actually' more than having my teeth extracted.

Every time I visit Brisbane, I think, 'This is my childhood.'

The Trump World Tower was home growing up, and it's where my office is.

Being on the toilet stool is the grossest thing there is, to me.

Many of my books are set in New Jersey because that's where I was born and raised. I lived there until my kids finished elementary school. Then we moved to New Mexico, the setting for 'Tiger Eyes.'

We had a ranch, growing up, that we used to spend a lot of time at. I guess anything from the ranch house would probably be some of my favorite childhood memories.

There was this sausage factory a block away from my childhood apartment. It didn't smell nice, like chorizo or something; it was pretty foul. Just nasty. But that smell reminds me so much of my childhood because every morning when I was going to school, I would smell that.

I was born in Pennsylvania, but for most of my childhood, my family lived in Lynchburg, Virginia.

I have no memories of my childhood in Texas. When I was about four, we moved to San Francisco. I was in the middle of seven brothers and sisters: three girls and four boys. Most of my older brothers and sisters got the blame for everything, and the little ones had a free ride. We loved each other but fought like cats and dogs.

I grew up in Aberdare and some of the nicest beaches close by were at Tenby and Saundersfoot.

When I was 10, I had dyed red hair, and I used to paint my nails - I think my mum secretly loved it.

My worst Christmas ever was in 1987 when Santa brought me and my sister a dose of chicken-pox. And my worst present ever was a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner! I don't like to sound ungrateful, but I do find vacuuming difficult to get excited about.