Liberace Quotes

My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.

I know exactly what it's like to not have a penny. I know exactly what it's like trying to get a job. I know exactly what it's like having bloody one tin of Ambrosia left in the cupboard. But I know I can survive.

The fight to make ends meet, keeps a man upon his feet.

I grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot; he got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking 'til he found it.

When I started out, I struggled, and I was broke a lot. But I'm glad I struggled, and I'm glad I was broke a lot.

We're living in hard times.

l had a job, and if you had a job in the depression you were rich.

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.

There are far too many people who get up early in the morning, and work hard, who cannot make ends meet.

I don't want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

I've seen my family work so hard and come up, and I've seen it all get taken away. I had to man up, and part of that was sleeping in my car, getting an apartment for a month, and getting evicted the next month. Staying in the $25 - $35 hotels. I just never panicked. I stayed focused and I never surrendered.

I walked the streets of New York for two years begging for a job, and I couldn't get one.

When you’ve been poor all your life, you never really think it could be any other way. And sometimes you’re even happy, because at least you’ve got your family and your health and your arms and legs and a roof over your head.

I got tired and embarrassed by the constant poverty of those years. I told Doug [ Brinkley] this is really going to be a horrible downer of a book [The Proud Highway] if all it's going to be is about being broke. I didn't like being reminded of desperation at all times.

War had the effect of encouraging people to try to stay alive. Poverty, too. Survival was simply too hard-won to be given up lightly.

A guy I interviewed for Hard Times says, "What do I remember about the Great Depression? That I was hungry, that's all." Elemental things.

It really strikes me how much of your energy in America, especially if you're from a working back-ground, is spent just keeping your head above water. It really saps your grace and your strength.

Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

I can remember standing in a W.P.A. line with a gunny sack, and I remember having to buy chocolate milk instead of white because it was one cent cheaper.

The hardest work in the world is being out of work.

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

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.

As far as I was concerned, the Depression was an ill wind that blew some good. If it hadn't occurred, my parents would have given me my college education. As it was, I had to scrabble for it.

I experienced firsthand what it means to be poor, what it means to go hungry, and that, I think, may be the reason, the root cause of why I'm able to work so hard, even these days.