James Reston Quotes

When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money.

I can go back to poverty if a situation comes. I have sailed through the worst days of my life, and I am prepared for any crisis.

The opposite of Prosperity is not poverty. It is anxiety.

I would certainly rather the industry not go broke, but if that's what it takes for everyone to acquire some values and lose that sense of entitlement, maybe a little belt-tightening wouldn't be so tragic.

It was the height of the Depression, and suddenly I am earning pots of money.

New York never felt the recession. New York never felt a depression.

We're living in hard times.

I've always found it very sanitary to be broke.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

I cannot help but raise a dissenting voice to statements that we are living in a fool's paradise, and that prosperity in this country must necessarily diminish and recede in the near future

We are not facing great economic difficulties. The Indonesian people are faring reasonably well - just compare us to India or some other countries.

I have met so many people who had their life savings wiped out, who lost their homes, who are barely back with their heads above water.This was a disaster for our country, and we can never let that happen again.

The people who are filing for bankruptcy in increasing numbers every year, it's not the poorest. It's not the people at the economic fringes. It's people who worked hard and played by the rules.

I was 21 and looking for work in 1932, one of the worst years of the Great Depression. And I can remember one bleak night in the thirties when my father learned on Christmas Eve that he'd lost his job. To be young in my generation was to feel that your future had been mortgaged out from under you, and that's a tragic mistake we must never allow our leaders to make again.

The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn't have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn't get as far as Hoboken at that time.

What is the source of power of musicians who are financially browbeaten, most of whom work for minimum wage or less? Musicians who cannot even afford to buy tickets to operas or concerts in which they themselves perform?

Recessions are hard on people, but they are not hard on art.

I didn't feel the Depression at all. I always had a pocketful of money.

As far as I was concerned, the Depression was an ill wind that blew some good. If it hadn't occurred, my parents would have given me my college education. As it was, I had to scrabble for it.

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.'

We've all got to get away from this idea that the big money's still around.

I had been working for eight years and all I had to show for it was this horrible debt. At one point we had the bailiff at the door.

I grew up in the heart of the Depression.

I used to boast that Whole Foods was sort of recession-proof. And obviously I've been proven wrong. So I'm not boasting about that any longer.

During the financial crisis and bailouts of 2008, it probably occurred to very few average people that we were entering a period of hardship for billionaires.