Frank McCourt Quotes

I always remember to go on the Staten Island Ferry because it's the most amazing view of New York. And it's free! You see Ellis Island, and it conjures up something of that great moment: you know, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It's staggering.

I've always loved New York City and the idea of a cultural exchange: the immigrants coming to America.

My father described this tall lady who stands in the middle of the New York harbor, holding high a torch to welcome people seeking freedom in America. I instantly fell in love.

It is exactly here that my statue should be erected. Here where people have their first view of the New World. I have found the admirable spot. It is Bedlow’s Island.

It was always my dream to live in New York.

There in the city's steam-and-smoke-smudged harbor is the most extraordinary sight of all: a great copper-clad lady with a torch in one hand and a book in the other. It is not a statesman or a god or a war hero who welcomes us to this new world. It is but an ordinary woman lighting the way- a lady offering us the liberty to pursue our dreams if we've the courage to begin.

I had immigrant grandparents who came to this country and came for religious freedom and loved it, never made any money, Bronx, Brooklyn, but loved America. And they told me every day it's the greatest country in the world.

I grew up in New Jersey and never went up the Statue of Liberty.

Living in New York City, I am reminded by the Statue of Liberty that the United States of America has always welcomed those yearning to breathe free and seek a better life.

I always dreamed of living in N.Y.C.

I part of this great nation because my grandfather was born here, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He took a horse, back in 1895, and ride it all the way down to Guanajuato, looking for his American dream. No penny in his pocket, only dreams in his head. And he was an immigrant coming from the States into Mexico. And he found his American dream in Mexico.

Ellis Island lies in New York Harbor 1,300 feet from Jersey City, New Jersey, and one mile from the tip of Manhattan. At the time of the first European settlement, it was mostly mud, sand, and oyster shells, which nearly disappeared at high tide.

And you have to remember that I came to America as an immigrant. You know, on a ship, through the Statue of Liberty. And I saw that skyline, not just as a representation of steel and concrete and glass, but as really the substance of the American Dream.

My grandparents used to tell me stories about their trip to Ellis Island from Russia and life on the Lower East Side of New York.

No place epitomizes the American experience and the American spirit more than New York City.

I was born in 1935. But my mother and father - who were immigrants from Ireland - and everybody that I knew growing up in Brooklyn came out of the Depression, and they were remarkable people.

DiMaggio was never a rube. He was very smart and very urban. Coming out of the Great Depression, he was the immigrant boy who made it big. Coming back from World War II, he had all the wealth and power that New York aspired to. When New York saw itself as the center of the world, he was its paragon of class.

My first American experience was in the harbor of New York City when I saw that amazing big, tall lady. I remember thinking, 'Oh my goodness, a lady runs this country.'

My grandmother was born in Russia, and she came through Poland on her way to America in the early 20s. She moved to Brooklyn.

My father is a first-generation Mexican-American and sports changed his life. It allowed him to basically live his dream, but it was only because he was given the opportunity by one person.

I remember my first time coming to New York City. It was 1986, and I was on a U.S. tour with a stop at Lincoln Center. It was love at first sight.

New York was the Promised Land growing up. Writers were gods! The great gods of American culture... I thought.

Ed Koch once said that New York City is where immigrants come to audition for America. That's what happened to my parents; that's what happened to me.

Look, I'm an immigrant, so I know what it is like to dream about coming to America and then to get here and be able to make your dreams a reality, ... Of course, there are millions of people who want to come here. Let's help them, let's find a legal way t

It is true that the top quintile is getting richer while the bottom is getting poorer, but the bottom is not the same people. There is, fortunately, a constant churning at the bottom as new immigrants move in and those who used to be on the bottom begin their long, thrilling upward climb to the American dream.