Gordon Parks Quotes

A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.

I must thank my good friend Nigel Brennan. His strength of character in the midst of extreme hardship inspired me during the darkest days. Despite our separation, he always managed to find small ways to remind me that there are gentlemen in the world, even when I was surrounded by just the opposite.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

Write what you love. Love will hold you through the hard times and hold the world during the good times.

Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.

What I would say to the young men and women who are beset by hopelessness and doubt is that they should go and see what is being done on the ground to fight poverty, not like going to the zoo but to take action, to open their hearts and their consciences.

Hope is a flatterer, but the most upright of all parasites; for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior.

When we create hope and opportunity in the lives of others, we allow love, decency and promise to triumph over cowardice and hate.

To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

Life continues to be difficult. It always will be because that's just life. But I am so glad I have put some happiness into the world.

To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.

I think that film combines almost every element that makes human life worth living.

I think I grew up with a profound sense of watching people who were good people, who were smart people, who were hardworking people - God, nobody on this Earth worked harder than my mom and dad - and they had very little.

People's lives do not have to be drab and dreary and wrapped in old newspapers. The deserve something for the soul and noble visions.

You can give poor people this royal wedding to watch and make them feel good about themselves, or you can give them something useful like, I don't know... a toaster.

I have been drawn to stories that are attempting to turn suffering into beauty.

All beautiful things in this world are because of women.

People who are living in economic struggle are more than their circumstances. They're majestic and creative and beautiful.

Poverty was my mother's midwife. She had her children in poverty. But she also found a road to bring us a sense of purpose, and she taught us how to be valiant in the face of oppression.

Just look at Gal Gadot when she smiles or when she meets somebody and shakes their hand. That is the embodiment of Wonder Woman. She is so beautiful and powerful, but kind and generous and thoughtful. She's just an amazing person.

Every single wave, when I was overwhelmed and poor and struggling in New York, there were these extraordinary people in New York who said, 'Come this way.'

John Cheever was the first writer I ever read who sort of had that similar sensation that, you know, life is nasty, miserable, brutish and short, but that occasionally, there's a certain river of light, a kind word, a telling gesture that sort of illuminates something.

I know the world is mean, that there is so much suffering on the planet that none of us can imagine. I often think of those who have nothing, who have to suffer every day, so a winner, a game, set, match will never give me immense joy, only satisfaction.

We live in a great state filled with creative, community minded, hard-working, decent people. And what they want from us is opportunity, possibility and hope.

'Take Me to the Alley' is about trying to uplift the lives of people who have been afflicted, maybe the homeless or somebody with an illness, or maybe they're refugees.