Jaime Harrison Quotes

I grew up in a family that nearly lost everything, but I ended up in the United States Senate because I grew up in an America that invested in kids like me and built a real future for us.

Where else can a guy like me make it? Blind and poor---only in America.

My mom grew up in poverty in Oklahoma - like Dust Bowl, nine people in one room kind of place - and the way she got out of poverty was through education. My dad grew up without a dad, with very little and he also made his way out through education.

I've seen a lot of poverty - coming up as a young child, lost hopes and dreams and people that never had a chance to have a decent quality of life. I believe we can do a lot greater than that.

I grew up in poverty, so I thought, 'I want to be a billionaire one day. I'll go and work for Donald Trump. I'll go try to be on 'The Apprentice' and be successful.' But 15 years later, I never would imagine that he, as the president of the United States, would call me a low life.

Having grown up a trailer park kid on welfare and food stamps, becoming jaded is impossible, although now I make a good living, which I'm not ashamed of; when you've been poor, it never leaves you.

The American Dream - I believe in that cliche because I know what having nothing feels like.

America has always fascinated me; it's a country where you can make it from one side to the other with no money, by hook or by crook.

I'm a product of public housing. My parents grew up poor, but their dream was to own a home.

When I got outta High School I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis, Memphis.

I believe in the American Dream because I have lived the American Dream.

Income inequality is troubling because, among other things, it means that many people in our society don't have the opportunities to advance themselves.

If you go on TV and say there's no other country in the world where you can be born poor and become rich, you get a huge megaphone. If you tell the truth, which is that most of the studies show actually the United States is worse than anybody except Britain in upward mobility, there is no audience for you.

Poverty is the schoolmaster of character.

It would be hard to find a more compelling example of the American dream than Alberto Gonzales.

I grew up with not a lot of money and I definitely shopped at Goodwill. But even in my most unfortunate state, I was really blessed compared to a lot of the rest of the world. I had a really great chance to follow my dreams and have them actually come true.

Lots of people have gone from public housing to do great things in the world and have a tremendous sense of duty to their fellow man because of it.

I believe in the American Dream, because I've lived it.

I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth; I came from really humble beginnings - the projects of New York City - and I worked my way to get to where I am.

It might be that my poverty is my fault—the result of my ineptitude or my laziness. However, is there any way that the poverty that my child is condemned to is his fault? He certainly does not have the same opportunity as my child would if I were rich. But where then is our equality of opportunity?

The upwardly mobile American is becoming a statistical oddity..

I have found out in later years we [his family] were very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn't know it then.

You’re twice as likely to realize the American Dream if you’re growing up in Canada rather than the U.S.

I had come to college believing in a story that if you worked hard, the American dream was reachable.

I didn't grow up with a lot of money, but I grew up with a lot of opportunities that many people don't have.