Malachy McCourt (born 20 September 1931) is an Irish-American actor, writer, and politician. He is the younger brother of author Frank McCourt.
Here is a selection of his quotes.
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Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
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When 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.
If you look up the word “gab” in the dictionary, it’s insignificant of importance, of no substance. That’s what gab is.
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Organized religions have all the facets of organized crime, except the compassion of organized crime.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Imagination in the child is powerful. Reading and laughter and love are essential in our lives.
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Live every day as if it’s going to be your last, and one day, you’ll be right.
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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.
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