Quotes About Resourcefulness

When I returned to the United States after three years of World War II service, my total assets consisted of one wife, one small daughter, $276 in the bank, and an idea. The idea was for an export business to supply items badly needed everywhere in Europe.

There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of.

I remember World War II when there were very few books, very little paper available. For me to walk into a shop or look at a list and see anything that I want, or almost anything, is like a kind of miracle.

The women of Afghanistan, left behind as their men fought, did what the women of World War II did - used their wits and resourcefulness to preserve some semblance of civilization.

Even though it was the 70s, we found old stocks of clothes that had never been worn from the 50s and took them apart. I started to teach myself how to make clothes from that kind of formula.

I grew up in communist Russia where we didn't have anything, so I'm not worried that I can't buy an extra pair of shoes.

If we were poor, we didn't know it 'cause I guess you don't miss what you never had. So, you know, we made do with whatever. We used to make our own toys, and we used to play with spinning tops and marbles. A pocket full of marbles, and you were rich - you didn't worry about no money.

Worrying about how you're going to make something is a huge constraint - most people can't make anything at home because it's too expensive.

There is something to be said for people who have to work hard, be creative, produce what they have with little - or no - means. Those of us from poor homes have the advantage of thinking for ourselves and of knowing that when times get hard, things could always be worse.

The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.

When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.

I was always a kid trying to make a buck. I borrowed a dollar from my dad, went to the penny candy store, bought a dollar's worth of candy, set up my booth, and sold candy for five cents apiece. Ate half my inventory, made $2.50, gave my dad back his dollar.

I just believe you make the best of what you have. So I have to duck through a few doorways or wait a little bit extra to find a new pair of pants. I think it's worth it.

My mother never threw anything out. If there was a sliver of a tomato, it was in the refridge. I would come in with my friends, and Mom would say, 'Want something to eat?' In 20 minutes, there was four, five dishes to eat.

I was mainly raised by a working mum who didn't have much time or inclination for making food. So I had three or four basic meals: fish fingers and a tomato; a packet scotch egg and a tomato; pasta with a tin of tomatoes; and extra mild plastic-y cheddar chopped into cubes with bits of cucumber.

My favorite way to cook is to look in my cabinets and see what I have. That's the most fun. 'I don't have tomatoes, but I have this chili-garlic sauce from the Asian grocery store. Let's throw that in there and see how it affects my beef barley soup!'

If I don't do laundry today, I'm gonna have to buy new clothes tomorrow.

I don't go on set with an army of people because the most expensive elements of a movie production are the plane tickets, the hotel rooms, food and gasoline. If you're willing to discover new colleagues in the place that you are, you can save a ton of money.

Cockneys make good beggars. They are held in high esteem by the fraternity in America. Their resource, originality and invention, and a never-faltering tongue enable them to often attain their ends where others fail, and they succeed where the natives starve.

From the ship all things were taken out, so that the clothes which I took with me on my back I only had.

We took a plant that was being closed by a big company thinking there was no good use for it, and we came in with a different perspective. We bought some used equipment, as simple as we could.

I'm the type of person that doesn't like to wait for people to do things for me, and I never want to feel stuck. Why sit around and be like, 'I wish my label would book me some studio time,' if I can just buy my own studio equipment and figure out how to run Pro Tools and record it myself?

I can make just such ones if I had tools, and I could make tools if I had tools to make them with.

I was working in a gaming company, but I really wanted to make animation. I didn't really have anything special, no special tools at my disposal, so I used what I had on hand like Photoshop, and that's really how I started.