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“Explaining the Jews in a Catholic school when you’re Irish is like having to explain your country’s foreign policy while on a vacation in France. You don’t know what you’re talking about and no matter what you say, they’re not going to like it anyway.”
― John William Tuohy, No Time to Say Goodbye: A Memoir of a Life in Foster Care

“My affliction decided to join us, forcing me to push my toes on the floor as though I were trying to eject myself from the chair. I prayed she didn’t notice what the affliction was making me do. I half expected to be eaten alive or murdered and buried out back in the school yard.
“I’m not afraid of you, ya know,� I said, although I was terrified of her. The words hurt her, but that wasn’t my intent. She turned her face and looked out the window into North Cliff Street. She knew what her face and twisted body looked like, and she probably knew what the kids said about her. It was probably an open wound for her and I had just tossed salt into it.
I was instantly ashamed of what I done and tried to correct myself. I didn’t mean to be hurtful, because I knew what it was like to be ridiculed for something that was beyond one’s control, such as my affliction, and how it made me afraid to touch the chalk because the feel of chalk to people like me is overwhelming. If I had to write on the blackboard, I held the chalk with the cuff of my shirt and the class laughed.
“You look good in a nun’s suit,â€� I said. It was a stupid thing to say, but I meant well by it. She looked down at the black robe as if she were seeing it for the first time.”
― John William Tuohy, No Time to Say Goodbye: A Memoir of a Life in Foster Care

“For many, the American dream was short-lived; slavery may have been abolished but the ships that sailed into New York harbour brought a plentiful supply of cheap labour to power the wheels of industry and tend to the needs of the better off. It is in the nature of human avarice to exploit the less fortunate.”
― Dennis Cronin, Michael Sweeney