Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

A lot of what we do at Fox is blue-collar stuff.

My father announced early on that he didn't want his sons to be "country club bums." And for a number of reasons, I bore the brunt of that - I have an older brother and two younger brothers. So he had me work in all my spare time. I started out picking dandelions, shoveling stalls, milking cows, building a fence - whatever dirty job was out there. That's a big deal, because you learn things working that you don't learn in school.

When you work with your hands, you learn to appreciate how easy it is to earn money talking.

My dad had this rock hard body and would work 12- to 13-hour days. The guys he worked with were scrap-iron guys. Nobody on that road crew had read a book in 10 years, but there was something about the way they lived I really admired.

My family were really hard-working, blue-collar people, and I didn't know the idea or concept of working and having fun. I thought you just worked and made money to support your family.

I have so much respect for people who do blue-collar work because I come from that background myself.

People say writing is really hard. That's very unfair to those who are doing real jobs. People who work in the fields or fix roofs, engineers, or car mechanics. I think lying on your back working under an oily car, that's a job.

I class myself as a manual laborer.

I was raised as a real worker: you know, you get out and get a real job.

People I grew up with, my family, work in the oil fields. Everyone works a labor job - construction, concrete. All we know is work. It's a physical culture.

Guys do dives because they don't know how to work. Guys do flips because they don't know how to work.

When I was working, there was no digital. We actually worked; we used Polaroids.

There is rough work to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it.

The duty of labor is written on a man's body: in the stout muscle of the arm,, and the delicate machinery of the hand.

My own father held down two jobs, barely affording the little rented house I grew up in. My dad worked hard, lifted heavy things, and got his hands dirty. The only soap we had at my house was Lava. Heck, I was in college before I found out it wasn't supposed to hurt to take a shower.

The manual worker does not have to sell his personality. He doesn't have to sell his smile.

I've never felt like a pop star - this is a nine-to-five sort of gig. It comes from working in the factories, that world. You don't forget it.

We need to take care of people that are out there busting their butts trying to make it; that's what everyone's done for me.

I like being outside and I like hard work.

The problem with Hollywood is that nobody works. They have meals. They go to Pilates. But it's not enough. So they do drugs. If everybody had a pile of rocks in their backyard and spent every day moving them from one side of the yard to the other, it would be a much happier place.

I think of being an actor as a blue-collar profession.

I call myself a labourer because I take pride in calling myself a spinner, weaver, farmer and scavenger.

And blessed are the horny hands of toil.

When I was 17 - 16, my father and I cut wood all day long and I was swinging that crosscut saw and hauling wood.

The travels before and after the tour are what add up to what you're doing. You are really called into service - and it's the service industry man, it's blue collar man, I'm sweating by the second song. It's construction work from that second song on.