Malachy McCourt famous quotes

Conservatism is not a political ideology, it is a severe form of brain damage for which there's hardly any cure.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Political #Brain #Damage

Organized religions have all the facets of organized crime, except the compassion of organized crime.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Compassion #Crime #Facets

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Hard Work #People #Purpose

I am an alcoholic, as I said. And it is however we call it, a disease. That's an explanation, but not an excuse.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Disease #Excuse #Said

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Beautiful #Laughter #Color

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#School #Talking #People

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Song #Silly #Kids

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Stuff #Way #Looks

I think people are so disillusioned with the parties. It's one party with two different names, and they are so spineless.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Party #Thinking #Names

Imagination in the child is powerful. Reading and laughter and love are essential in our lives.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Laughter #Children #Powerful

Alcoholism is a dread, an awful, and fatal disease.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Awful #Disease #Dread

To me a saint is a severely edited sinner. That's what I think.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Thinking #Saint #Edited

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Father #Drinking #Leaving

Do whatever you want because that's not what you are. That's what you do for the moment.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Want #Moments #Do Whatever You Want

They don't allow a dying on the highway. No Passing. They give you a ticket if you die on the highway.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Giving #Dying #Tickets

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Children #Years #Married

I am full of theories that are based on a very liquid foundation, because I used to be a drinker.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Foundation #Liquid #Used

I would never become an alcoholic like my father because my father deserted us. But diseases, there's no let up.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Father #Disease #Alcoholics

The Supreme Court gives corporations the same rights as a human being. It's absurd. You can't do that.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Rights #Giving #Corporations

There seems to be less obvious corruption in city government and New York politicians, they aren't Republican or Democrat, they're New Yorkers.
-- Malachy McCourt

#New York #Cities #Government

Democracy to me is letting the other person speak and being dissenting without being disagreeable.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Democracy #Speak #Persons

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Dream #New York #Fruition

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Jobs #Years #People

Once I know I'm an alcoholic then it is my obligation, duty to see what I can do about healing myself.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Healing #Duty #Obligation

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Suicide #People #Awful

To lose one parent is a tragedy, to lose both is utter carelessness.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Parent #Tragedy #Loses

I've avoided work all my life, you see. So, I'm like a bee. I go from flower to flower.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Flower #Bees #Avoided

When I'm writing, I thoroughly enjoy it. It just goes on.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Writing #Goes On #Enjoy

I kind of miss the old sleazy Times Square, in a way. And yet I don't mind not being accosted by all sorts of strange people.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Squares #People #Missing

If you look up the word "gab" in the dictionary, it's insignificant of importance, of no substance. That's what gab is.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Looks #Substance #Look Up

Never make any reference to the other person's family. "You're just like your - " because that is out, completely.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Like You #Persons

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Worry #One Day At A Time #Way

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Recovery #Disease #Incurable Disease

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?
-- Malachy McCourt

#Stupid #War #Destiny

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Body #Trade #Humans

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Lying #Drinking #Infidelity

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Men #Example #Stones

I stay in the present, so I don't know about the future.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Knows

That's one part of oppression is to make sure you are a shameful, shamed human being. That takes care of the past.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Past #Care #Oppression

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Thinking #Awful #Come Up

I'm an alcoholic, recovering. And I used to smoke cigarettes, and I was a philanderer and I, wouldn't call myself good.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Cigarette #Used #Philanderer

To be Irish today is the abandonment of shame and the younger people are moving it out and they're moving the fear away. They're not afraid, they're adventurous.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Moving #People #Today

Whenever I'm broadcasting, I like it. When I'm broadcasting I can't wait to hear what I say.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Waiting #Broadcasting #I Can

Limericks don't come from Limerick. But it comes from that between the verses when they used to have those competitions that they would put in the refrain, "follow me up, follow me up, follow me up to Limerick Town."
-- Malachy McCourt

#Competition #Towns #Follow Me

I've been sober for 25. And every day I am very grateful that I don't drink.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Grateful #Sober #Drink

I had great faith that perhaps this man Obama would do something, but he is, we're all in the grip of big money.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Men #Bigs #Great Faith

I absolutely love the public transportation system in New York. No matter what, no matter how people complain, it is the best in the world.
-- Malachy McCourt

#New York #People #Complaining

The word is a sound of some sort and that's where the energy comes from.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Energy #Sound

Corporations can deduct their planes, all their office expenses, their machinery, their computers and Teleprompters and whatever else they have. They can deduct their yachts, they can deduct their limousines, their planes, everything.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Office #Corporations #Computer

The purpose of the media is to make us all spectators, to watch. So that's why we have millions of fat children watching the games, eating and consuming and not playing themselves.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Children #Games #Media

We are spectators to violence, and therefore are, how well we don't know and make sure we don't know the difference of real violence to that of simulation.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Real #Differences #Violence

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.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Writing #Hands #Long

I would like to do away with all kind of - all weapons. A dream - totally. Including the bow an arrow.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Dream #Arrows #Weapons

That's my punishment in hell, shoveling horseshit.
-- Malachy McCourt

#Punishment #Hell