|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank McCourt
Pulitzer Prize for Biography
We didn't want to look like we came from the lane, but you could spot us a mile away. The urchins from the lanes. We had that look. You see kids roaming the big cities, in New York, in America, the inner cities as they say. You see bands of kids and you know. You know where they came from. You can spot them. They're roaming around. And you look at some of them, they don't want to be there, they want to be someplace else. They want to be a part of what they're walking through, the fine streets and the broad avenues. And that's the way I felt. I didn't want to be detected as a slum kid, but there was no choice. We had no clothes. We didn't have clothes. So when I came to New York I tried to pass myself off as middle class. I even tried to affect an American accent. It didn't work. I tried some days. Even nowadays my wife falls on the floor laughing at my attempt at an American accent. So we all wanted to sound like James Cagney.
View Interview with Frank McCourt
View Biography of Frank McCourt
View Profile of Frank McCourt
View Photo Gallery of Frank McCourt
|
|
|
Frank McCourt
Pulitzer Prize for Biography
I wanted to be something else but I didn't know what. There was no clear cut dream. I thought I'd like to have a job, a decent job in an office. I'd like to be in an office sitting behind a desk, pushing papers around, making little decisions about pushing papers, get out at 5:00 o'clock, meet this gorgeous girl and we'd probably get married and have two-and-a-half kids and live out in Long Island or someplace like that, and I'd go to mass every Sunday morning, be nice and warm and clean, and I'd be accepted, and I'd lose my Irish accent, and I'd sound like James Cagney. I didn't know what to do. I read a lot. I discovered the 42nd Street Library. That's what I did. I read and read and read voraciously and widely. Then I was liberated from this menial job I had in a hotel. I was the man with the dust pan and the broom in the lobby. I was liberated by the Chinese who attacked Korea and America drafted me and sent me to Germany for two years. I don't know what I would have done if the Chinese hadn't attacked Korea. I'm a victim of history in Ireland and I'm a beneficiary of history in America.
View Interview with Frank McCourt
View Biography of Frank McCourt
View Profile of Frank McCourt
View Photo Gallery of Frank McCourt
|
|
|
Frank McCourt
Pulitzer Prize for Biography
I had to show what happened to this young man, me, who I hope would be a prototype for all immigrants. What happened to me. How I made my way through New York, which is a fearful place to get through, and how accidentally certain things happened, and how I made certain things happen. That's kind of a balance. Some things happen to you. I made certain decisions. I made a decision that I wasn't going to be a cop, that I wasn't going to be a bartender. That I wasn't going to stay in some menial job for the rest of my -- because of my anger. I'm better than this. And most people know they're better than that.
View Interview with Frank McCourt
View Biography of Frank McCourt
View Profile of Frank McCourt
View Photo Gallery of Frank McCourt
|
|
|
Frank McCourt
Pulitzer Prize for Biography
The day I retired from teaching, again, was one of the most satisfying days of my life and it was sad, but when I -- the day I retired, I went home and I was by myself and I was having a glass of wine. I was thinking about the lunch the teachers gave me that day. The retirement lunch. And I was able to look back on that life, that 30 years in the classroom, and say -- I was able to congratulate myself. I'm glad I did that. That was good. I felt useful, that I don't think I would have felt if I had gone into business or something like that. So that was -- that was that deep satisfaction that I had, that I had followed some kind of a deity -- what would you call it?-- Discipline. And I was dealing with kids, and I hope that I had been of some use, of some help. You never know. But they've told me. I meet the kids, former students, and they tell me that I was of help.
View Interview with Frank McCourt
View Biography of Frank McCourt
View Profile of Frank McCourt
View Photo Gallery of Frank McCourt
|
|
|
David McCullough
Two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography
Jimmy Stewart -- the part Jimmy Stewart is playing -- is very important. He's almost always playing the same part, and that is the seemingly ordinary, decent American who -- when put to the test in an extreme situation -- rises to the occasion and does the extraordinary. And that's an old, old story in our American way of life. In fact, it's the story of Harry Truman, which is what I've spent the largest part of my creative writing life working on, a project of 10 years. That's the story of Harry Truman, the seemingly ordinary fellow who -- put to the test -- rises to the occasion and does the extraordinary. And, I think we like that story because that's the story of our country.
View Interview with David McCullough
View Biography of David McCullough
View Profile of David McCullough
View Photo Gallery of David McCullough
|
|
|
David McCullough
Two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography
David McCullough: I think the American dream is the good society. It's the city on the hill. It's what the Founding Fathers talked about, where justice is a way of life, where fundamental rights of citizenship are honored, where the individual counts, but where pulling together in the spirit of all being in the same boat can achieve more than any individual can in isolation or independently. I think it means education. This country was founded on the idea that education for all -- education at its best -- is not just good for the individual, it's essential to the system. The system won't work unless we have an educated population. Democracy demands it. It's the old line in Jefferson: "Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free, expects what never was and never will be."
View Interview with David McCullough
View Biography of David McCullough
View Profile of David McCullough
View Photo Gallery of David McCullough
|
|
|
James Michener
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist
The other is that I do think we have paid less attention to the values of our society than we should have. Through the church, through great education, through our newspapers, through the agencies that we have. I think that a nation that loses touch with its essential values, the values which characterize it and determine it, is really playing a very dangerous game because the time comes when you forget them. And when you forget them, you lose them. And when you lose them, you may lose your forward impetus. Let me be very frank about that. From what I know, and the wonderful fact that we are a continental country, from ocean to ocean, we are all that that implies. All the great resources. I am quite confident that we are good until about the year 2050. I think we can absorb errors, and we can absorb civil disturbance, and we can absorb defeats as we did with Vietnam. We can absorb a lot of knocks. I think we are safe, but I'm not so sure after that. If there were to be a continuing provision of generations that did not know what America is all about or did not have tough rigorous inner discipline, or did not produce goods that will keep the country rich and prosperous -- we might be in very serious trouble.
View Interview with James Michener
View Biography of James Michener
View Profile of James Michener
View Photo Gallery of James Michener
|
| |
|
