When I Was Poor Quotes

#1. When I was poor, I didn't know how big the world was and what a man's life could be. I was too ignorant to make my dreams big enough.

Ken Coffman

#2. I just try to have a good time, enjoy my family, enjoy my life. I was having a blast when I was poor, and I'm having maybe a little bit more now that I've got something in the bank.

Mark Cuban

#3. They gave me star treatment when I was making a lot of money. But I was just as good when I was poor.

Bob Marley

#4. Money has not changed me. I am living proof. I'm worse than I was, all right, when I was poor. I don't care about money. Money - you can't buy me. And I don't care about it.

Bill O'Reilly

#5. It's hard being black. You ever been black? I was black once - when I was poor.

Larry Holmes

#6. When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I'm rich and I complain about inequality they say I'm a hypocrite. I'm beginning to think they just don't want to talk about inequality.

Russell Brand

#7. When I was poor living in a garage in Kansas I began to draw the mice that scampered over my desk. That is how Mickey Mouse was born.

Walt Disney

#8. When I was a kid a long time ago, when the sun rose, I was outside on my bike. If my parents were lucky - poor parents! - I would be home before it got dark.

Larry Ellison

#9. The first crime was mine: I committed it when I made man mortal. Once I had done that, what was left for you, poor human murderers, to do? To kill your victims? But they already had the seed of death in them; all you could do was to hasten its fruition by a year or two.

Jean-Paul Sartre

#10. I was happy to be a scrub. I was proud to be a scrub. When I got older and I started talking to girls, part of my game when I was talking to them was to tell them how poor I was. I actually enjoyed that.

Joseph Bruce

#11. My dad left when I was a little boy and I grew up with my mother's family. There were foundations in the U.S. where Jewish people got together and sent money to Cuba, so we got some of that. We were a poor family, but I was always a happy kid.

William Levy

#12. When I was earning, saving, and spending, I felt poor. When I started to give away some of my earning for good purposes, abundance filled my heart.

Debasish Mridha

#13. My wife and I were poor when I started but we struggled along until things happened for me in my thirties. I knew I was doing what I loved even if I wasn't getting paid for it, so I think I'd still be doing it.

Denis Leary

#14. When I was a kid in Houston, we were so poor we couldn't afford the last 2 letters, so we called ourselves po'.

George Foreman

#15. Oh, when I was a kid in show business I was poor. I used to go to orgies to eat the grapes.

Rodney Dangerfield

#16. When I hear a man say that his childhood was the happiest time of his life, I think (puff) my friend, you have had a pretty poor life.

Winston S. Churchill

#17. I'm lucky in that I don't like sweet things at all. My father loved cakes to such a degree that he kept forcing them down my throat when I was little, and it put me off for life. He had terrible cholesterol, poor thing.

Felicity Kendal

#18. When I was 16, I made some little 35mm documentaries about the poor in London. I went round Notting Hill, which was a real slum in the 1950s, shooting film.

David Suchet

#19. When I was growing up, I despised Irishness. I felt our music, our television and our books were just poor imitations of what came out of Britain and America. I was all set to abandon it entirely.

Marian Keyes

#20. I was born illegitimately and almost immediately, as I understand it, placed in an orphanage. So my very earliest memories were in an orphanage. It was the tag end of the Great Depression when I was born. People were desperately poor.

Bryce Courtenay

#21. It's so funny you judge me arrogant after I succeeded.
You didn't help me at all when I was so poor and needy.

Toba Beta

#22. When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.

Carl Sandburg

#23. All I wanted, even when I hated you most, was some poor, barren, parched excuse to love you. But you only gave me riddles.

Patricia A. McKillip

#24. I'm very grateful that I was too poor to get to art school until I was 21 ... I was old enough when I got there to know how to get something out of it.

Henry Moore

#25. I kind of wanted to be a waitress in New York City. I thought it was fun and glamorous in its own way. Like in the movie 'Beaches,' when Bette Midler is banging on the radiator, and it's cold, and she's poor. I kind of thought that would be fun to be, like, a poor, struggling actor.

Kether Donohue

#26. Physical hunger and physical poverty is something I could only imagine. I've been poor when I was in China ... As kids we never had to starve, but just didn't have enough meat, enough rice.

Joan Chen

#27. We were poor when I was young but the difference was that the government didn't come around telling you you were poor.

Ronald Reagan

#28. When I was a little baby, my mama she said Son.Travel where you will and grow to be a manAnd sing what must be sung, poor boySing what must be sung.

Hoyt Axton

#29. The thing that really struck me when I went to junior high was class. I grew up on a pretty poor street, but the school district I was in included some fine neighborhoods - so I got to know a couple of the kids from those places and went to their houses and experienced such culture shock.

Lynda Barry

#30. I think when hip hop first started, people were open to it, and groups like Public Enemy and there was groups like Poor Righteous Teachers and all these people who were spitting a lot of knowledge, a lot of history, questioning a lot of societal barriers was starting to be super popular.

Ice Cube

#31. When I was seven we moved to Orpington, and in my new school, I was kept in for extra lessons to learn 'joined-up' writing instead of playing football. I still think that my poor handwriting and lack of soccer skills date from that period.

Martin Evans

#32. I am myself when I get up, I am myself throughout the day and I am myself when I go back to sleep, you probably might have met someone else when I was asleep and claimed it to be changed me.

Pushpa Rana

#33. We were so poor when I was a kid that I had a sister who was stamped, 'Made In Japan.'

Pete Rose

#34. I'm generally never at a lack for words, but it's indescribable how poor the response was from our own government officials, ... We could have coffee for three hours and never get through all the horrors I've seen. Where was the help when we needed it?

Hannibal

#35. In elementary school, I did well in science, but I was a poor writer. When I got to high school, I failed all my courses.

Avi

#36. I think that growing up very poor in a very wealthy town gave me a sense of being an outsider, and I hated it when I was growing up.

Moby

#37. We weren't dirt poor, but there was no spare money kicking around. While it was very much understood that the way to a better life was through education, books were a luxury we couldn't afford. But when I was six, we actually moved opposite the central library, and that became my home from home.

Val McDermid

#38. Well when I was young, actually not just me, but we were all poor. Korea used to be one of the poorest countries in the world. Despite such circumstances, I was very, very fortunate to be blessed with having parents who always instilled in a spirit of can-do spirit.

Lee Myung-bak

#39. When I was last in Paris I was dirt poor, hiding from the Vietnam War. One night, in an old church, I considered taking my life. I didn't know how to be so young and not belong anywhere, stuck among so many perplexing melodies.

Philip Schultz

#40. When I was growing up, my family was so poor we couldn't afford to pay attention.

Mr. T

#41. I had a woman breakdown and cry when she met me which was difficult to deal with because immediately when someone starts to cry, you want to comfort them, you know, 'Poor thing.' I comforted her. I tried to make her feel better.

Elijah Wood

#42. You will have no test of faith that will not fit you to be a blessing if you are obedient to the Lord. I never had a trial but when I got out of the deep river I found some poor pilgrim on the bank that I was able to help by that very experience.

A.B. Simpson

#43. When I had the honor to be a second lieutenant, I ate dry bread, but I never let anyone know that I was poor.

Napoleon Bonaparte

#44. It must've been Albert's military background, because man, when he dropped a bomb the entire country shook. I was still jittery as a hurricane survivor in New Orleans, and I was sure that somewhere in Alaska some poor Inuit had just taken a tumble from his sled for the very same reason.

Jennifer Rardin

#45. When you're young, you don't know that you're poor, you just know whether or not you're happy. And i was happy, and loved. My mom did whatever she has to do to get by, and the lesson i learned from my childhood was that it's possible to pursue happiness, no matter where that pursuit may lead you.

Jared Leto

#46. When I was a kid I was not a good student. I went to the University of Colarado, my grades were poor. I was asked to leave after a year. What I really wanted to do was to be an artist.

Robert Redford

#47. When I think back, the neighbors were always sayin', 'Oh, that poor Julie, that poor orphan.' I loved it. The Italians would invite me in for dinner - it was an Italian neighborhood mostly. Oh, I loved it.

John Garfield

#48. I came to Harlem from West Virginia when I was three, after my mother died. My father, who was very poor, gave me up to two wonderful people, my foster parents.

Walter Dean Myers

#49. My johns adored and worshipped me, therefore they empowered me. When I was 18, 19, and 20, I had a poor self-image and needed attention. It's hard for people who haven't been prostitutes to imagine, but I think it's often true. There can be a very symbiotic relationship happening.

Annie Sprinkle

#50. My son, Wolf, was born when I was past 40 and the author of a best-selling novel. That means he has grown up a middle-class child - one who sometimes asks me for stories of my childhood but knows nothing of what it means to grow up poor and afraid. I have worked to make sure of that.

Dorothy Allison

#51. I was born in Nizhny Novgorod to a very poor family and unfortunately my father and mother separated when I was very little.

Natalia Vodianova

#52. Why hadn't she said anything? It wouldn't have been weird for her to tell me, Pierce, back when I was in high school and had terribly poor judgment, I used to go out with an extreme douche.

Meg Cabot

#53. When the TV version of Annie came on, I was drawn to it. It was the struggle of this poor kid in this environment and how her life changed. It immediately resonated.

Jay-Z

#54. There are these very poor communities on the outskirts of Cairo called Mokattam, where a lot of the garbage collectors live. I used to volunteer there, doing health and education work when I was younger and living in Egypt.

Jehane Noujaim

#55. It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down the rabbit-hole
and yet
and yet
...

Lewis Carroll

#56. I'll never forget the moans and cries of the poor detainees in Jordan when they were suffering torture. I remember putting my hands over my ears to stop myself from hearing the cries, but no matter how hard I tried, I was still able to hear the suffering. It was awful, even worse than torture.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi

#57. I overheard things in the Woolworths when I was a child, people saying, 'Oh, poor, little thing,' as if they had some understanding that I was being born biracial into a world that was still very difficult for interracial marriages and biracial children.

Natasha Trethewey

#58. My family moved to the Philippines when I was 14. While living there, I learned that my mom grew up very poor. Seeing that kind of abject poverty firsthand during my travels deeply shaped my life. Seeing those living conditions motivated me to want to tell inspiring stories of struggle and triumph.

Manny Pacquiao

#59. I met the president when he was president-elect at a meeting in Austin. He spoke of his faith. He spoke of his desire for a compassionate conservatism, for a faith-based initiative that would do something for poor people.

Jim Wallis

#60. In the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, when I was a boy, everybody was poor, but didn't know it; and everybody was comfortable and did know it.

Mark Twain

#61. When I was a kid I got so much help from the Church. When I was a kid, our family was so poor they couldn't afford me to go to school, so there was an American family that send the money to the church to support my school fees.

John Woo

#62. My parents were so poor when I was a kid, I never went anywhere. I take our youngsters with us because I don't know anything that teaches them so much.

Alan Ladd

#63. I was born in Somalia, which is in East Africa. My parents started with nothing: poor, poor, poor. They eloped, which was unheard of in my country, when my father was 17 and my mother was 14.

Iman

#64. I am the poet of the poor, because I was poor when I loved; since I could not give gifts, I gave words.

Ovid

#65. When I was young and miserable and pretty
And poor, I'd wish
What all girls wish: to have a husband,
A house and children. Now that I'm old, my wish
Is womanish:
That the boy putting groceries in my car
See me.

Randall Jarrell

#66. I was very sad for many days when I discovered that in the world there were poor people and rich people; and the strange thing is that the existence of the poor did not cause me as much pain as the knowledge that at the same time there were people who were rich.

Evita Peron

#67. Oh," said Haze, "poor me should know, I went through that when I was a kid: boys twisting one's hair, hurting one's breasts, flipping one's skirt.

Vladimir Nabokov

#68. I was born in 1946, so I was born on the tail end of when everything was deemed important. You made things to last. If you came from a poor family, there was only one can opener.

Patti Smith

#69. When I moved to Los Angeles, I wrote spec screenplays. I was really poor, and I thought I was just gonna do this for a while to make a little money so I could write novels. I thought movies were a second-class art form. I condescended to it - I didn't know enough to know it was really gonna be hard.

Stephen Gaghan

#70. When I got outta High School I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis, Memphis.

Elvis Presley

#71. I was poor. When you're poor you work, and when you're rich you expect somebody to hand it to you. So I think being reasonably poor is very good for people.

Imogen Cunningham

#72. Now I was, as they said, become godly; now I was become a right honest man. But oh! when I understood these were their words and opinions of me, it pleased me mighty well. For, though as yet I was nothing but a poor painted hypocrite, yet, I loved to be talked of as one that was truly godly.

John Bunyan

#73. We were really poor when I was growing up; my parents, both artists, were bohemians. Life was a desperate struggle, but in service of a high ideal, which is exactly what my photographs are about.

Justine Kurland

#74. When I was a young man, I was poor. In a war with other nations, I was in eighty-seven fights. There I received my name and was made Chief of my nation. But now I am old and am for peace.

Red Cloud

#75. Because I was poor I had one special advantage. When you are poor, and basic survival is your concern, you have no alternative but to be an entrepreneur. You must take action to survive just as you must take action to seize an opportunity.

Naveen Jain

#76. When I talked to my medical friends about the strange silence on this subject in American medical magazines and textbooks, I gained the impression that here was a subject tainted with Socialism or with feminine sentimentality for the poor.

Alice Hamilton

#77. When I think back, I get mad at what they did to those poor men. Ernie must have had PTSD - they called it shell shock - and the doctors told him to keep it all bottled up inside. They didn't know any better, but it was like treating syphilis with candy bars.

Anita Diamant

#78. I was voluntarily poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life when I was working. So I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful because I didn't have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when i also didn't have to worry about money.' - Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson

#79. When I was young if a girl married poor, she became a housekeeper and a drudge. If she married wealthy, she became a pet and a doll. - Susan B. Anthony A

Gail Collins

#80. I hated Peter O'Toole. I wanted to kill that guy! When they said he was dead, I was happy. People said, 'Poor Peter O'Toole.' I was happy!

Alejandro Jodorowsky

#81. When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.

Jackie Chan

#82. My father was unemployed and I was the eldest of seven children. We were very poor. And when you ask how did we support ourselves, the only funding that we had was unemployment payments.

John Hume

#83. I left home as soon as I could, when I was 18. I thought I was in love and got married - the press called it Prince Charming and Cinderella. He was a Hilton so I was the poor little Cinderella. And when I got a divorce nine months later I never told the court why, but he was cruel.

Elizabeth Taylor

#84. In France, the image I had was of a shy girl - a poor lonely girl and not too good-looking. When I went to England, I had another image. I felt the journalists were much more interested in my looks than in my songs.

Francoise Hardy

#85. When I was 13, I did become a Christian. And so it was when I was 13, that I thought ... I just ... I really saw a good example in Jesus and how he was just so ... such a tremendous radical love and service of the poor. I just thought, 'Man, why can't we all do the same?'

Hugh Evans

#86. Oh, when I was a kid, I was poor. Christmas, I got no presents. Well, there was one Christmas, on our front lawn - Prancer and Dancer - they dropped off a little something.

Rodney Dangerfield

#87. They like him better when he was the poor cousin that they can feel good for taking notice. I tell him that politician do the same thing to me when they realize me can read.

Marlon James

#88. I suffered a lot when there was, like, a birthday party and I was not invited. Not because I was ugly or stupid; I was not invited because the parents would say to the kids, "Don't invite him, because he's poor and he comes from the south of Italy, and he can't give you nothing."

Riccardo Tisci

#89. When I was growing up in South Korea in the '70s and early '80s, the country was too poor to buy original records. Everything was bootlegged.

Ha-Joon Chang

#90. It's really hard to be poor in New York - I was really poor when I lived in New York.

Josh Radnor

#91. There was a nobility in poverty when I was growing up. My mom was poor but she was planting roses and she was cleaning the steps, you know what I mean. You didn't feel sorry for yourself.

Ricky Gervais

#92. I believed, when I entered this convent,
I was escaping from myself, but alas,
poor me, I brought myself with me!

Juana Ines De La Cruz

#93. I've gone from being quite wealthy, when I was defending women, to being quite poor defending men.

Warren Farrell

#94. My parents came from a poor background and worked their way up because of education. They saw it as a way to succeed. So they cared about me getting straight A grades when I was growing up.

Jennifer Garner

#95. I love it when I meet a woman who was poor as a child and maybe had an abusive family, and broke out and found the one and they're married with a very healthy home and children, and they've let go of regret and their past and decided to embrace their journey and what that stands for.

Abbie Cornish

#96. When you look at guys who get recruited, most of the best athletes, they come from poor families. I don't forget. I was a junior looking through my mother's stuff and looked at her bank statement, and we had $30 in the bank.

Eric Dickerson

#97. When asked what would he do if he found $1 million, Yogi responded, If the guy was poor, I'd give it back.

Yogi Berra

#98. When I was a kid we were so poor, if I hadn't been a boy I wouldn't have had anything to play with.

Rodney Dangerfield

#99. I was born with an extremely negative attitude. I was the kid who wouldn't smile in Christmas photos, was a poor sport, and hated a lot of things. I eventually grew out of my negativity when I matured.

Colton Haynes

#100. I was from a poor Jewish family in the South Bronx. My father was a plumber, but when I was 16, he got sick and I had to take over. Being a plumber in the South Bronx wasn't fun.

Leonard Susskind