Remembering Frank McCourt

Frank McCourt at The CT Forum on May 4, 2001

When we asked Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison several years ago who she might like to have a conversation with on stage at The CT Forum, she didn't hesitate with her response: Frank McCourt.

And on one memorable evening back in May of 2001, to our great delight, she did just that.



Thank you, Toni, for having that conversation with the wonderful Frank McCourt - an exchange of thoughts and ideas that is as intriguing now as it was then.

Today, we celebrate the life of Frank McCourt. We celebrate his vibrancy, his warmth, his hard-won wisdom, and his incomparable wit.

"He says, you have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace."
— from Angela's Ashes

"People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying school masters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years.

Above all -- we were wet."


"It’s lovely to know that the world can’t interfere with the inside of your head."
— from Angela's Ashes

"Love her as in childhood
Though feeble, old and grey.
For you’ll never miss a mother’s love
Till she’s buried beneath the clay."
— from Angela's Ashes

For more video clips of Frank McCourt at the CT Forum, visit CTForum on YouTube.