There's So Much Absurdity. Poverty Is So

I Appealed To My Mother. I Told Her It Wasn't Fair The Way The Whole Family Was Invading My Dreams And She Said, Arrah, For The Love O' God, Drink Your Tea And Go To School And Stop Tormenting Us With Your Dreams.

They Can Afford To Smile Because They All Have Teeth So Dazzling If They Dropped Them In The Snow They'd Be Lost Forever.

I'm Not One Of Those James Joyce Intellectuals Who Can Stand Back And Look At The Whole Edifice... It Was A Slow Process For Me To Just Crawl Out Of It, Like A Snake Leaving His Skin Behind.

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.

I Don't Absolve My Father Completely Of His Responsibility For What He Did To Us I Feel Compassion, Maybe. He Had His Demons. But I Still Can't Understand How A Man Can Walk Away From Children. And Leave Them To Starve, As We Nearly Did, If It Wasn't For My Mother Going Out And Begging.