"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. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.” -- Irish-American author Frank McCourt (8/19/1930 - 7/19/2009), from his Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Angela's Ashes," the poignant memoir of his deeply impoverished childhood. His book "'Tis" picked up where "Angela's Ashes" ended, and his last memoir "Teacher Man" described his time as a teacher in New York City public schools. His lasting works were created from the palace of his mind, rising from his tragic and dire family situation that would have left others in despair.
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