Leslie Odom Jr. Quotes

I've always found it very sanitary to be broke.

Poverty us no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.

I don't really believe in the myth of being poor but happy. At the poorest times in my life, I wasn't happy. I was just hungry.

Financial problems cause distress and loss of self-respect.

I have no problem talking about how hard it's been, how broke I've been, and how broke I was not even that long ago.

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

Going through economic hard times is something I know firsthand.

I come from a poor background, I've seen struggle. Money will come and go, but I will continue to be grounded.

I had a year, where... I was secretly, 100 percent, dead broke.

I didn't take the money route because I saw my parents struggle for survival.

When you start off broke - and we weren't broke, we were negative broke - you never forget that. You stay appreciative.

My family, like many families here in South Carolina, have faced difficult financial situations.

When you ain’t got no money, you got the blues.

Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying.

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.'

We always had money problems. Sometimes I would lie awake at night wondering how to pay the rent.

There is nothing worse than being ashamed of parsimony or poverty.

The couple of years before I was declared bankrupt were the roughest. The bank letters, the pressure, the stress was awful. You're in this twilight zone of not knowing where your life is going, and yet you're in Westlife. Everything was great with the band. I was earning money, and it looked good.

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've never had money before in my life. Ever. Never, ever.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

Nobody wants to make me a rich man. In fact, most people want to make me a very poor man. I can guarantee some people fantasize at night about how poor they can make me.

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

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

As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in.