Cornelia Parker Quotes

My parents were so proud when I got a scholarship to go to theatre school - it was unheard of that a coal-miner's son should go to drama school.

I came from a working-class family, but I was supported by a grant system and had my fees paid, so I came out of Oxford with a debt of something like £200.

Part of the creative journey for me was not to come up the conventional route. I didn't go through drama school. I chose not to. I came from a very working-class area, a child of Nigerian immigrants.

My dad grew up in a working-class Jewish neighbourhood, and I got a scholarship from my dad's union to go to college. I went there to get an education, not as an extension of privilege.

I'm a huge art buff.

My job is art curator, not artist. All I have ever wanted to do is immerse myself in art, to enjoy it, to learn about it, to write about it, to talk to others about it.

As a boy, I was never interested in theater because I came from a working-class Scottish home. I thought, 'I want to do movies.' Then it was finding the means to do it.

I love the art world, I love art galleries, I love what it means - I love art.

I was lucky to grow up at a time when it was not difficult for the child of a tenant farmer to make his way to the state university.

My first concern was to take care of my drawing. I did not have any knowledge in arts, especially Haitian arts, apart from the paintings I saw in my father's office.

Some men will be always able to pay more for their children's education than others; and that those children will, inevitably, win in the struggle of life.

I can trace my interest in modern classics to the summer before art college.

I'm not arguing for a return to the grammar school system, but there must be a way of identifying bright kids from ordinary backgrounds and giving them a world-class education.

I think the country will get behind someone who comes from a working-class background, who truly epitomizes the American Dream.

The Margaret Thatchers of this country made it through - like I did - because of the grammar school system, which gave the opportunity of a lifetime to working-class kids. It put them on a level playing field with the privately educated kids, and opened up the top universities to them.

I think Ant and I were ambitious because of where we come from. Both of us are from working-class families on council estates in Newcastle.

I'm from a pretty working-class background, and I really worked hard in my life to eradicate those parts of myself that were stupidly trapped in that world.Those of us who come up that way made a series of choices to benefit ourselves and make ourselves more generous and open.

I'm from a working-class background - I had free school meals all my life and then spent six years in art school.

Kanye is a student of art. He's an art-school-dropout type of kid that will talk about art till the cows come home.

We must ensure that every single child can go as far as their ability and their aspirations will take them.

I've just got a real thirst for knowledge now, especially seeing how the world is, seeing how the disparity is with African American men, and I want to do something special. And getting a degree from Duke is special, especially coming from where I come from.

We cannot afford to lose talented young black people, who make it to university, overseas, or worse, to let other talented black people be put off by the notion that university is somehow not for them.

No child's dream should be limited by the quality, or lack thereof, of the education they receive.

I don't ever think of myself as coming from a particular class because my father was working class but made his living as a newspaper foreign correspondent - someone of no fixed abode, as he used to say - who was as comfortable dining with the Mountbattens in India as he was having a pint with the boys. He was very gregarious.

Working-class students more often lack the advice, guidance and support needed to navigate the tricky application process, whereas their wealthy peers at top public schools have admissions tutors to help their students game the system.