Jimmy Lai Quotes

My mother was a full-time mom, and Dad started his own business. He was a mini-American dream story. Came from Russia at age 4, started his own pen business in Brooklyn. The company isn't around now, but he created his own healthy little world, leaving a decent legacy. My dad taught at Cooper Union but was never fully graduated himself.

My parents were exactly like millions of other Americans who had a fire in their belly to build something of their own, and in so doing they exemplified the dignity of work, the opportunity available in this great nation to those willing to work, and they left the world a bit better than it was when they first showed up.

I have two sons. Good sons. They're both businessmen.

I am a human being. I started out with virtually nothing. I worked my way up like so many businesspeople have and made ourselves great in this country. And that is what we have to make sure we preserve for our grandchildren and future generations all the way through.

My father came from a very poor background, but I was very fortunate in the sense that we were never in need. My dad was determined to make sure that we didn't want for things. He wanted to give us more opportunity than he had, a better shot at a better life.

The restaurant business had a profound effect on my future and that of my two brothers. When we were able to stand on a stool to reach the sink, we washed dishes, and later, when we could see over the counter, we waited tables and managed the cash register.

In my early teens, I was working in a Wimpy Bar and delivering cab company cards to make cash. I also ran a tuck shop at school. I struggled academically because of being dyslexic. When I saw other families and what they had, it inspired me. I thought, 'I can get that, too, if I work hard.'

The American Dream - I believe in that cliche because I know what having nothing feels like.

Some of our most successful businessmen in US grew up in orphanages. They were well treated, and they learned discipline. They learned right or wrong, and they have wonderful careers.

Sometimes you're not blessed with the materialistic stuff but you're blessed with a work ethic.

In American history, it's about hard work and self-reliance. It's not about collecting giveaways or being on unemployment forever. That the economy moves ahead for people who are going to work to realize the American dream, own a home, send your kids to college. I think it's the founding cornerstone of America.

I was always a hard worker, and that's why I got invited to come to America. My uncle actually said, 'You've to go to America. You work like this in America, you're gonna make a lot more money.'

I used to make $300 a week, struggling to put food on the table, but I have become one of the highest-paid fighters in the world. I feel that's destiny.

I always felt that Jay Z, if he had a different upbringing, could be on Wall Street or in politics. If you really listen to Jay Z talk, he's kind of the smartest guy in the room.

I'm super inspired by Master P and early moguls. They were doing everything. I wanna do that, too. Twenty-six albums in one year. It's possible. Very possible.

I grew up with nothing, and that was my motivation.

I grew up poor. The fact that I had to struggle to succeed, that wasn't a big deal to me. I'd struggled my whole life.

If you can make it in Rockford, you can make it anywhere.

This is the land of getting over. The land of second or even third chances; the land of doing whatever you have to do by any means necessary in order to fulfill the American Dream.

I was crazy poor, but I was learning and putting myself out there and getting hired to do whatever gig I could and auditioning.

My grandmother started as a ticket-taker and basically became the CFO of my dad's company. It was a very important first impression for me - I've always looked on the business with more eyes than just as a wrestler.

My mom, how she raised me, my brothers, my cousins, when I was a kid with one bedroom for 12 people... You think about all that, and God blessed me to get somewhere and do something I love and do something I've done since I was a kid. And blessed me with the talent to do it.

All people are entrepreneurs, but many don't have the opportunity to find that out.

The best stuff happens when you take a chance. When you risk something and do the thing that the other people are taking a chance on, on a network kind of level, they will be rewarded. You know, risk-reward.

Of all the advantages which come to any young man ... poverty is the greatest.