Tommy Kirk Quotes

When I was 22, I was thrown out of graduate school and then fired from three jobs in a row at higher and higher salaries where I saved nothing.

In a packed programme tonight, we will be talking to an out-of-work contortionist who says he can no longer make ends meet.

I could not keep my success. I had such a great run. By 93-94, it all came to an end and I had to go to Bangladesh and work there.

Most of the people I meet who are on unemployment are people who have had jobs for 25 years, lost them; they've been knocking on doors every week.

You know, my Grandpop Finnegan used to have an expression: he used to say, 'Joey, the guy in Olyphant's out of work, it's an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law's out of work, it's a recession. When you're out of work, it's a depression.'

If we don't change, millions of American families are just one medical emergency, or one layoff, away from financial disaster and bankruptcy.

I've become a professional failure - in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment.

Men and women of high professional standing have been reduced to the status of vagrants.

I know what it's like to be shoveling to pay bills. I know what it's like to not have a job.

If you see me doing a new stand-up special, it probably means I've been out of work for a while.

When I was a deacon, the ominous signs of the Great Depression began to appear. Tens of thousands lost their jobs. Money was scarce. Families had to do without. Some young people did not ask their mothers, 'What's for dinner?' because they knew all too well that their cupboards held very little.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Before 'Grease,' John Travolta was a big star from 'Welcome Back Kotter'... but that's not where I met him. I met him at unemployment when we first moved to California.

There's nothing like a little bit of unemployment to kick the stuffing out of you when things are going well.

I'm grateful I know what it's like to be unemployed for long periods of time.

If you've just been sacked from work, with no money coming in and a baby to feed, clothe and keep warm, it's unlikely you'll have a thousand pounds or so to spare.

My father's money vanished in the Great Depression, and he had trouble keeping a job.

My family was very poor. Strangely, though, my father was an enigma in that he was always working. He was not a ne'er-do-well. He wasn't lazy. He just couldn't hold on to money. It just, it was an enigma for him. He just, his pockets were always empty.

I have made mistakes in my career by associating with films which were mediocre because I needed money at that time.

When I think about what I'm going through, as President, it doesn't compare to what the folks that I'm representing are going through. They're losing jobs. They're trying to figure out how to pay their medical bills. They've seen retirements suddenly dissipate because of what's happening in the stock market. And so as tough as the job might be, and the politics of Washington can sometimes be I'm always reminded of how fortunate I am to be here, and what an extraordinary responsibility I have to try to deliver on some of the promises that I made during the election.

I did go through a period where I was on unemployment.

Believe me, it's always a lot harder on the guy getting fired.

A journalist is a reporter out of a job.

Poverty became something one could see and experience firsthand, no matter where one was on the economic ladder; it became something you could viscerally experience through the lives of friends, family, neighbors, colleagues. I'd venture to say it's a rare person in 2013 America who knows nobody who lost a job in the recession, or knows nobody whose home went underwater or who went into foreclosure.

I know what it's like to see someone lose their job as a result of the European Union. I saw my father lose his job, I saw his business go to the wall, I saw 24 people who he employed also lose their jobs.