Allen Iverson Quotes

Skating, I think I was told once, is the second most expensive sport. My family's had to refinance three times - they really want to do anything that it takes for my dreams to come true. I hope to one day have a family that I can do that for and kind of give back in the same way that my family gave to me.

I am grateful for the lessons I learned from my parents' sacrifices. They often had trouble making ends meet, so we moved for them to find work. I remember my mom would sometimes take on second jobs, like ironing, just so we could buy groceries.

I've always been the person to look at any turmoil as temporary. I recall times where my mom was working five and six jobs, and there's still no food in the house.

At my first Olympics, I didn't have a contract, and I wasn't making any money. After my first Olympics, I was working at 24 Hour Fitness at the front desk. I would go to practice in the morning, run home, shower, grab some food and then go straight to work. I didn't get off of work until 10 or 11 o'clock at night.

My mom Marina and I were poor and hungry. We could sometimes not afford to eat - seriously. We lived together in a small town, called Berdyansk, in Ukraine. I was an only child. I don't think we would have survived if there had been more kids.

A lot of times when people become successful, people don't really understand what they had to do or the sacrifices they made to do that, or they assume that they had money. This is coming from, like, a kid who was broke and lived with roaches and a single mom in Dorchester.

My mom had five kids. And she came home after working three jobs, and I'd rub her feet. We'd all rub her feet. We were lucky to get any time with her.

Fortune has, in the main, hitherto looked unfavourably upon me since I left home, but I begin to hope for better things. Still, in all my past distresses, one thought has consoled me - I have learned to appreciate a parent's love.

My parents did everything possible. My dad has worked from eight in the morning until nine in the evening to make it possible so I can play tennis. We had to cancel tournaments because we couldn't afford to go there.

Eventually I did that, but it took a lot of twists and turns, and there were a year or two there where I was living with no money at all - no home, no car, no nothing. I was living in somebody's garage in Los Angeles at that point - for a year.

It really was hand-to-mouth and you can say, 'Poor little me, how dreadful, what a deprived childhood', but I didn't feel that way at all. It's all about the attitude at home.

When I was struggling to get recognition as a wrestler, I faced innumerable hardships. I even slept on the ring itself after finishing my practice. Those days, I did not have a house to live.

My mom would get up every day at 4 A.M. and worked two jobs. I always felt I was the poorest kid on the block. I had a chip on my shoulder about being broke.

My dad is my rock. Every single penny he earns goes into my dream.

Back at the beginning of my career, I had to make all these sacrifices - sleeping in a car on nights where I'd wrestle in front of 20,000 people - because I wasn't making any money.

My parents sacrificed everything for me. My father worked on a building site and as a driver - so many jobs. My mum was at home full-time to take care of me, my sister, and two brothers.

When it all got taken away, I was becoming a young man. So I had to sacrifice to leave my family... Sleeping in my car, getting an apartment for a month and getting evicted the next month. Staying in the $25, $50 hotels.

My mother and father were lovely parents, always quite hard up, but very hard-working.

Growing up it was humble beginnings.

My father walked to school 4 o'clock every morning with no shoes on, uphill, both ways, in 5 feet of snow and he was thankful.

My mom missed meals on several occasions because there was only enough food to feed all of us. My mom didn't have a bed until I was 15 years old. She slept on a couch... I remember laying with her, like I used to sleep with my mom until I was like 12. I was a big baby; I'm a momma's boy. But my mom is my best friend, and never let me down, ever.

Having grown up in dire poor, the thing that I hated the most in life was poverty.

My children didn't have my advantages; I was born into abject poverty.

I don't believe in pressure. Pressure is when you don't know where your next meal is coming from.

I grew up in the South Bronx, raised by my grandmother, who scrapped and scraped to make sure I had a roof over my head and food in my stomach. I was painfully aware of what it was like to live with limited resources and a certain level of uncertainty.