Maria Theresa Quotes

I know what it feels like to be broke and alone, and I don't ever want my loved ones to see that or know what it's like.

No money, no family, 16 in the middle of Miami.

I have been down and out, living in Brooklyn, no money even for a subway, no food whatsoever. Like, I remember just sitting in my room all day - even my television wasn't working!

I've lived out in a park sleeping on the grass with no place to go; I've not eaten. I've been there.

I think that so many people don't understand how easy it is to be broke, how easy it is to find yourself in a situation where you're in an absolutely foreign place.

Loneliness and hunger were my fortunes of creation.

At the Superdome, a young man came up to me holding a baby. He'd run out of diapers. He'd run out of medicine. His baby was sick. The guy's saying, 'Help me! Take my baby.' What could I do? That's the definition of helpless.

I used to help my dad with a stall selling eggs when I was about 12. People were so hard up they would ask for one egg. But mostly no one came by at all. It was very demoralising.

When I walked out of the seminary, I was 31, but I was like a scared, frightened kid. I had no place to live, no license, no clothes. I was just a lost soul.

Alone! Alone! No beacon, far or near! No chart, no compass, and no anchor stay!

I have lost everything, and I am so poor now that I really cannot afford to let anything worry me.

In Hanover Park they highlighted the terrible plight of backyard dwellers and the fact that year after year nothing has been done to help you: the hope and despair you all live with every day.

For in all the world there are no people so piteous and forlorn as those who are forced to eat the bitter bread of dependency in their old age.

I know what it is like to feel vulnerable and fearful during a difficult time.

After you've cut back everything else, food is the last to go. I didn't mind putting an extra jumper on if I had food in the fridge. It was the point where I had an extra jumper on and no food in the fridge that I realised things had gone badly wrong.

Not having a roof over your head at night must be frightening, cold, lonely and depressing. To be seriously ill as well must be beyond upsetting.

There were times when I couldn't even buy a loaf of bread.

Rarely they rise by virtue's aid who lie plunged in the depth of helpless poverty.

There are people in America who are absolutely desperate right now, who have no means to support their families, who have no opportunities to better themselves or their education - and they're not that different from the farmers and working-class people that I visited when I went to Kenya with Oxfam.

Poverty snatches the reins out of the hand of piety.

Day by day night after night Blinded by the neon lights Hurry here, hustlin' there No one's got the time to spare Money's tight, nothin' free Won't somebody come and rescue me? I am stranded, caught in the crossfire Stranded, caught in the crossfire! Tooth for tooth, eye for an eye Sell your soul just to buy, buy, buy Beggin' a dollar stealin' a dime Come on can't you see that I I am stranded, caught in the crossfire

I only know that all is lost, and that nothing can help me unless I inherit money, strike oil or go to work.

Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with a few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing...You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you're at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you're the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish

We have two useless gods who never leave our island, but like to dwell in it constantly, Poverty and Helplessness.

That was the worst of being poor, you couldn't give the right things in sickness.