Amor Towles Quotes

Being poor with three small children is terrifying. You can't make any plans. You know you're not going on holiday, ever. There's no way you could ever afford driving lessons or a car. And the guilt I used to feel: they had holes in their shoes, and at one point, I had to send them to school wearing Wellingtons when the sun was shining.

Growing up, I wouldn't say I was poor. But my parents, although we lived in a nice, middle-class home, they had their struggles.

What's happened to society is we've become really pretentious. But there was a time in my life where I really had to choose between boiling potatoes and paying my gas bill, so I'd buy a can of potatoes.

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.

Mine was quite a working-class childhood with very little money, and my father was out of work a couple of times, which had quite a traumatic effect.

When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money.

We didn't really feel poor. You don't know that as a kid, but we really didn't have any cash. When machinery broke down, we didn't have money for parts, so we did our best to fix it.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

Being out of work for 13 to 15 years is no walk in the park.

Worrying about bills, food, or other problems leaves less capacity to think ahead or to exert self-discipline. So, poverty imposes a mental tax.

In a packed programme tonight, we will be talking to an out-of-work contortionist who says he can no longer make ends meet.

There were days when my father didn't have money for food, and we slept hoping the next day something could be got from work.

Our businesses can't create jobs when they're losing revenue, and the unemployed can't apply for jobs when they can't pay their phone bill.

I know what it's like to be shoveling to pay bills. I know what it's like to not have a job.

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

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

January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead.

There's only so much that you can tighten your belt before you squeeze yourself to death.

Now we've got lots of freedom and no money.

I grew up in a family struggling for work.

My family was mostly unemployed working class.

I think the most stressful time of my life was when I was in New York, and I didn't have money to pay my rent.

I grew up in New York City during the Depression. My earliest recollections were of my parents talking about what they would do if they didn't have the rent money. Luckily, we were never evicted. But my father was unemployed most of the time.

In lean times, you get plenty of sleep, and you're not flying around everywhere.

We don't make enough in our job to live the way that we would want to and to have the support that we would need. Most of our income doesn't even come from our salary from our employer and we have to find income from other places.