I had no accomplishments except surviving. But that isn’t enough in the community where I came from, because everybody was doing it. So I wasn’t prepared for America, where everybody is glowing with good teeth and good clothes and food.

McCourt contrasts two kinds of “normal.” In his impoverished Irish childhood, mere endurance—getting through hunger, illness, and instability—was the baseline shared by everyone, so it didn’t confer distinction or preparation for social mobility. Arriving in the United States, he encounters a culture where visible markers of health and prosperity (teeth, clothing, abundant food) signal belonging and competence. The quote captures immigrant disorientation: survival skills forged in deprivation do not automatically translate into confidence, credentials, or cultural ease in a wealthier society. It also critiques how affluence can make hardship invisible, leaving the survivor feeling unqualified despite having mastered the hardest lesson—staying alive.