Quinn was born in 1948 in Chicago. His family moved to the suburb of Hinsdale, Illinois, when he was a child. The son of Eileen (Prindiville), a school secretary, and Patrick Joseph Quinn, a public relations official for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago,Michael Barone and Chuck McCutcheon, The Almanac of American Politics: 2012 (2011) p. 512. his grandparents were Irish. He was reared a Catholic and attended the local Catholic elementary school, St. Isaac Jogues.Michael Barone and Chuck McCutcheon, The Almanac of American Politics: 2012 (2011) p 512 He graduated in 1967 from Fenwick High School, a Catholic school in Oak Park, Illinois; while at Fenwick, Quinn was the cross-country team captain and sports editor of the school newspaper. Quinn went on to graduate from Georgetown University in 1971 with a bachelor's degree from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he was a student of Professor Jan Karski and a sports editor for The Hoya. After taking a few years off from education, he earned a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University School of Law in 1980. In 1982, Quinn married Julie Ann Hancock. The marriage produced two sons, Davey Quinn and Patrick Quinn IV, before the couple's 1986 divorce.
