'Tis by Frank McCourt (sequal to Angela's Ashes)
We'll get something to eat in the coffee shop downstairs. Do you like hamburgers?
I don't know. I never had one in my life.
He rolls his eyes and tells the waitress bring me a hamburger with french fries and make sure the burger is well done because I'm Irish and we overcook everything. What the Irish do to vegetables is a crying shame. He says if you can guess what the vegetable is in an Irish restaurant you get the door prize. -20
They say caw instead of car and you wonder why they can't pronounce words the way God made them. -20
I wonder how he gets out of that long white robe he wears, if he pulls it over his head or lets it drop to the floor and steps out of it. An old Pope would never be able to pull it over his head and he'd probably have to call a passing cardinal to give him a hand unless the cardinal himself was too old ad he might have to call a nun unless the Pope wears nothing under the white robe which the cardinal would know about anyway because there isn't a cardinal in the world that doesn't know what the Pope wears since they all want to be Pope themselves and can't wait for this one to die. -22
..other nuns and novices .. sing hyms and praise the Lord for the privilege of washing all the clothes of the Pope and the College of Cardinals except for the underwear which is washed in another room by old nuns who are blind and not liable to think sinful thoughts because of what they have in their hands and what I have in my own hand is what I shouldn't have in the presence of a priest in the bed and for once in my life I resist the sin and turn on my side and go to sleep. -22
You go down to the kitchen and they're always happy like kids. He says, They're like the Negroes, they don't take nothing serious. Not like the Irish. We take everything serious. -39
They shouldn't stare. They should know better the way their mothers and fathers are spending fortunes to make them educated and what's the use of all that education if you're so ignorant you stare at people just off the boat with red eyes? You'd think the professors would be standing in front of their classes telling them that if you go to the Biltmore Hotel lobby or any lobby you're not to be staring at people with red eyes or one leg or any class of disfigurement. -40
I ask Buck if there are mass graves under the tablets and he says there's no need for mass graves when you burn everyone and thta's what they did at Dachau, the sons-of-bitches.
Weber says, Hey Buck, I didn't know you were Jewish.
No, asshole. Do you have to be Jewish to be human? -95
Sometimes I think I'd be the best Catholic in the world if tey'd only do away with priests and let me talk to God there in the bed. -99
They might talk about how they want to be doctors and lawyers till one throws up his hands and declares everything is meaningless, that the only person in the world who makes any sense is Albert Camus who says your most important act every day is deciding not to commit suicide. -156
Buck used to say in Germany that if you can make a girl laugh you're halfway up her leg. -191
Sometimes she talks like her grandmother who always tells you what to do with your ass. Get your ass in here. Get your ass out of bed. -223
The boys stand, place their hands on their heart and recite their own version of the Pledge, I pledge allegiance to the flag of Staten Island, and to one-night stands, one girl under me, invisible to all, with love and kisses for me and only me. -231
...and as soon as I open my mouth they'll say, Oh, you're Irish, and I'll have to explain how that happened. It's not as bad as being black. You can always change your accent but you can never change the color of your skin and it must be a nuisance when you're black and people think they have to talk about black matters just because you're there with that skin. -234
There are delicate mirrors, too, and you wonder what its like in the morning to see your face in a frame agog little Cupids and maidens frolicking and where would you look in such confusion? Would I look at .. my eyes or would I be enchanted with a maiden succumbing to a Cupid arrow? -271
Once in Rhode Island we argued over something and Zoe the grandmother siad, You're nice people, but not together. -275
...and she was now illustrating that Irish saying, Contention is better than lonliness. -298
The class coming in were curious about the class going out and why was everyone looking at this book and if it was that good why couldn't they read it. I reminded them they were seniors and the class going out were juniors. Yeah, but why couldn't they read that small book instead of Great Expectations? I told them they could but they'd have to it and they said they'd pay anything not to read Great Expectations, anything. -308
The girls complained again there was nothign for them except Juliet, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, and Queen Gertrude and look what happened to them. Didn't Shakespeare like women? Did he have to kill everyone who wore a skirt? -311
We found an old doll with tufts of hair, no eyes, no arms, one leg. We kept it for our two-year-old, Maggie, who called it The Beast and loved it over all her other dolls. -330
I've already warned my students these small children are poor liars, all they know for the moment is the truth. (The kids read stories that the high school students wrote) ... The book I read is Petey and the Space Spider. This book is okay except for the beginning, the middle and the end. -355