Quotes About Hardship

I'm often drawn to characters that are more obviously one thing. They're passionate, and there is always an element of strength because I think every person possesses that in some way, even if they've experienced hardship in their lives.

When our jewellery business went into receivership we avoided bankruptcy by selling our houses and possessions.

'BMB' has opened up a world of possibilities. It has inspired me to believe that the really difficult things in life can be achieved by sheer application.

The only process that comes close to the process of writing a whole book, in my experience, is childbirth. There is this moment when you think you can't possibly labour for another moment, and that, paradoxically, is when you have to push hardest.

I started working in an STD phone booth where I had to note down all the numbers that were dialed - this was post 9/11 when security was a looming issue. I got Rs 10 per day for my work. Soon after, a benefactor offered me a job in a cybercafe down the road for Rs 20.

If I was just a creator, I would still be back in the Lincoln annex in the Post Office.

When I was born, my dad was a scaffolder, and my mum worked in a chip shop. Then my mum taught herself how to be a hairdresser and ended up with her own salon; my dad became a postman and then a counter clerk. Our first house didn't have a bathroom.

I didn't finish college; my parents didn't graduate college - we didn't have a pot to piss in. I'm from Newark, New Jersey. I had to work. I didn't think it would be possible for me to be an artist without having a job.

Even that was all consumed after two days, and the patients had to try to choke down fresh fish, just boiled in water, without salt, pepper or butter; mutton, beef, and potatoes without the faintest seasoning.

My father, who was a hair colourist, died when I was young, so my mother had to work very hard. But at the same time, I do believe that if you have everything, it is easy to make a dinner. When you only have flour and water and olives and potatoes, you have to be much more creative, and that's what my mother is all about.

At lunchtime, our kitchen was like a mini restaurant: my grandmother and mother had to cook for as many as 25 people - extended family plus 10 employees. We ate a lot of cabbage and a lot of potatoes.

What's happened to society is we've become really pretentious. But there was a time in my life where I really had to choose between boiling potatoes and paying my gas bill, so I'd buy a can of potatoes.

I'm on the road earning my money. I didn't get any million pound record deals. Not unless you're Jedward! I'm doing very well, but I still have a mortgage to pay off. So I'm on the road.

You think if you win the Olympics, you'll become a millionaire overnight. But I was still scraping the barrel, looking down the back of the settee for pound coins to buy a pint of milk.

As a 16-year-old, I was 5-foot-5 and maybe 145 pounds. It was hard to believe a guy like that was going to make it to the big leagues.

I've not been paid millions of pounds for any fights. I've not made any money out of boxing.

My great-grandfather started in the coal mines, and my great grandmother made 10 pounds of bread every Saturday morning that we delivered to the neighbors. It was always about giving back. These kinds of things drive me to make a difference.

Poverty is the root of all evil.

Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying.

Some folks believe that hardship breeds artistic creativity. I don't buy it. One can put up with poverty for a while when one is young, but it will inevitably wear a person down.

Poverty is the schoolmaster of character.

There's so much absurdity. Poverty is so absurd.

There is a deep sadness to American poverty, greater than the sadness of any other kind. It's because America has such an ideology of success.

There's a real sense of desperation when you grow up in poverty.