Ann Romney Quotes

My parents had always preached the virtues of hard work. But hard work is one thing; economic struggle is another.

I come from a poor family.

You cannot understand what it means to be poor until you have suffered it.

I've been poor most of my life.

All through school, I was losing hundreds of pounds in school, so that's a journey - that's an old journey. I'm tired of that. I know that road.

You and I can be busy, and we take a vacation from work. You can't take a break from being poor. You can't say, 'Hey I've had enough of worrying about money, I'm just going to be rich for a couple of weeks until I've recovered.'

People work for a living. They got families to raise. Their lives are tough.

I've known the panic of financial struggle. I didn't grow up with money at all, and my family has certainly known the panic of, 'Oh, gosh, where's the next bit of money coming from?'

I'm a way bigger worrier than I ever was before I had kids. And, you know, the stress and anxiety that can go along with motherhood, I have had to battle that.

Motherhood has been an exercise in guilt.

We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation.

It's such a Bore Being always Poor.

Money is a never-ending problem.

I have a poverty demon. I'll ask my accountant if I can afford something, and he'll say, 'What are you talking about?'

I'm scared of screwing up my kids.

When we have financial struggles, kids are so much more aware of things than we want them to be.

I didn't have any extra money. But I can't say that I had a hard early career.

People who didn't know the depression just don't know what being poor means.

My mother cleaned homes and drove school buses, and when my family was on the brink of foreclosure... I started bartending and waitressing.

You have to pay the bills when you're a single mum.

I started when I was 39 as a cabinet secretary, and so I feel like I have lived an experience in my life where I can relate to families that struggle, and are scraping by and scrounging.

When I joined 'Essence,' I was a young, single mother. I was 24. I hadn't gone to college. I wasn't making any money at 'Essence' - what was it, $500 a month - and I was struggling. So I was always looking down the road, always hoping for a better, you know, tomorrow.

I did just about anything to pay the rent for a while.

We were under a lot of financial pressure when I was growing up.

Going through economic hard times is something I know firsthand.