Malachy McCourt
Live every day as if it's going to be your last, and one day, you'll be right.
Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
I had the taste of the alcohol since I was 11. It allowed me to be clever, charming and to behave outrageously. Acting also allowed me not to be me. So I could indulge every fantasy in this paradise of America.
In Limerick, a family that was dysfunctional was one who could afford to drink but didn't.
Imagination in the child is powerful. Reading and laughter and love are essential in our lives.
A lie to me is a dream that might come true.
Conservatism is not a political ideology, it is a severe form of brain damage for which there's hardly any cure.Collection: Political
Organized religions have all the facets of organized crime, except the compassion of organized crime.Collection: Compassion
My purpose in life always has been to avoid work. And I hear these people saying, "I work hard and I pay my taxes." Well, you're an asshole.Collection: Hard Work
I am an alcoholic, as I said. And it is however we call it, a disease. That's an explanation, but not an excuse.Collection: Disease
Somebody once said that the Irish derived the greatest benefit from the English language. They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter, they fling it at the sky like paint pots full of rainbow colors.Collection: Beautiful
To me a saint is a severely edited sinner. That's what I think.Collection: Thinking
Do whatever you want because that's not what you are. That's what you do for the moment.Collection: Want
I failed everything in school. I left when I was 13 because I had no comprehension of what the hell they were talking about up there at the blackboard. I must have that ADD thing. But, listening to people I thought, that's wonderful to be able to tell a story.Collection: School
I stay in the present, so I don't know about the future.Collection: Knows
I am full of theories that are based on a very liquid foundation, because I used to be a drinker.Collection: Foundation
I was not a good father in my first marriage. Although there are ways of deserting the family without leaving physically, I was deserted in my head. I was always out, always in the saloons, always drinking, always messing about.Collection: Father
I tell my children, shut up and let me speak. What I've learned, I have been married for 45 years and in my own family It is that I've learned to stop being judgmental, to listen.Collection: Children
Being a kid myself, I loved playing and I loved playing with words, and making up things and riddles and songs and not afraid of being silly in public.Collection: Song
I see the way I look upon organized religion, I was a victim of that of mythology, and of cruelty, and all the absurd stuff.Collection: Stuff
I've avoided work all my life, you see. So, I'm like a bee. I go from flower to flower.Collection: Flower
They don't allow a dying on the highway. No Passing. They give you a ticket if you die on the highway.Collection: Giving
Democracy to me is letting the other person speak and being dissenting without being disagreeable.Collection: Democracy
I think people are so disillusioned with the parties. It's one party with two different names, and they are so spineless.Collection: Party
Alcoholism is a dread, an awful, and fatal disease.Collection: Awful
Never make any reference to the other person's family. "You're just like your - " because that is out, completely.Collection: Like You
There were a few people who got jobs in Limerick, a big barrel on wheels, and it was a barrel that went back and forth, and a shovel and a broom. So, they went around shoveling the horseshit into this barrel. So, you got that job when you were around 15, and then you got to retire at the age of 65, with a pension. A small pension. So that would be 50 years of shoveling horseshit. And I was advised very seriously that I should get that job.Collection: Jobs
This is the place for me where every single dream I ever had came to fruition and I love it dearly. I love ya, New York.Collection: Dream
I would never become an alcoholic like my father because my father deserted us. But diseases, there's no let up.Collection: Father
The future has to do with fear. Don't attempt to come up here. Don't attempt to go forward, you were nobody, you are nobody, and you'll always be nothing, so don't even think about coming here because if you do, something awful will happen to you.Collection: Thinking
The Supreme Court gives corporations the same rights as a human being. It's absurd. You can't do that.Collection: Rights
There seems to be less obvious corruption in city government and New York politicians, they aren't Republican or Democrat, they're New Yorkers.Collection: New York
I've been sober for 25. And every day I am very grateful that I don't drink.Collection: Grateful
Whenever I'm broadcasting, I like it. When I'm broadcasting I can't wait to hear what I say.Collection: Waiting
The word is a sound of some sort and that's where the energy comes from.Collection: Energy
Once I know I'm an alcoholic then it is my obligation, duty to see what I can do about healing myself.Collection: Healing
To lose one parent is a tragedy, to lose both is utter carelessness.Collection: Parent
When I'm writing, I thoroughly enjoy it. It just goes on.Collection: Writing
I've seen so many horrible and awful results and consequences of people practicing alcoholism. It's murder, I've seen that. I've seen a lot of suicides, a lot of strange sins.Collection: Suicide
If you look up the word "gab" in the dictionary, it's insignificant of importance, of no substance. That's what gab is.Collection: Looks
When an English man speaks well, for example now, and this is another way of putting us down, they say he's "eloquent" you see. "Oh, eloquent chap they are!" An Irish person speak well, they say, "Ah, you have the gift of the gab." "Ah, you kissed the blarney stone." You see, all of this putting us down.Collection: Men
I wonder what I can do about war. Is it the destiny of human kind to eventually wipe ourselves out with these weapons of mass destruction? Are we stupid to think that we can control them?Collection: Stupid
There's no recovery from alcoholism, it is an incurable disease. And it also is a disease that tells you, you don't have a disease.Collection: Recovery
It's one day at a time, that's all there is to it, and so I don't have to worry about it. All I do is, okay, I do not have to drink. And if I feel like it, I postpone it for ten minutes, and that way I find something else to do in the meantime.Collection: Worry
Here am I, a human being and that has a body that is getting old. And I only have one, I can't trade it in.Collection: Body
The alcoholism got me and I ruined my first marriage with drinking and the lying and the deceit and infidelity, and all of that. The whole bloody thing.Collection: Lying
That's one part of oppression is to make sure you are a shameful, shamed human being. That takes care of the past.Collection: Past
I'm an alcoholic, recovering. And I used to smoke cigarettes, and I was a philanderer and I, wouldn't call myself good.Collection: Cigarette
I would like to do away with all kind of - all weapons. A dream - totally. Including the bow an arrow.Collection: Dream
When I'm writing in long hand, it just goes on and on and on. When I was in the saloon business, I would just greet people and talk to them and avoid taxes, and getting behind the bar. What else.Collection: Writing