Leslie Banks Quotes

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.

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 met my wife, I had no money, I had nothing, and I started my family without really, my career was nowhere, but I had these other businesses, I had these things I was doing to be able to afford a small home.

When I sent those scripts, that was the lowest point of my life. We'd just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers, the screen showed I've got $26 left.

It was a real hand-to-mouth existence in those early days - I'd have whatever dry cereal there was in the house for breakfast, 30 cents to spend on lunch and a hot dog for dinner. I did that for years. So there was definitely a hunger in me, of various kinds, to succeed.

We were so poor that my mother would often leave me in a foster home until she could raise enough money to rent rooms for us.

I was broke for more than 10 years. I remember staying up all night one night at my first company and looking in couch cushions the next morning for some change to buy coffee.

We were below welfare. We begged from people on welfare. My father tried to repair our shoes with pieces of bicycle tires.

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.

I came from nothing. We didn't have money, so I started work at 14 because I really needed the money.

The world knows already, they just don't have a picture up there or I'll spend the rest of my life in exile. It's hard to do that when you don't have any money.

I see my friends, my family, my cousins work all day long for very little money, and if I have this problem of not being able to wall on the streets, it's not a big deal.

When I was living in New York and didn't have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I'd think, that'll be good, that'll be a good spot for me when I'm homeless.

As an actress for most of my life, I am profoundly familiar with poverty.

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.

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.

For a long time, I couldn't even afford food and clothing. I climbed from the very bottom of the society.

When I was writing 'Withnail,' I was so busted flat that I had one lightbulb that I would carry around the house with me. I mean, really. No furniture, no money, and I was hoping to be an actor, but I could never get a job.

I traveled with my mother, Lela, and there was never enough money. I always had to roll down my silk stockings and carry a doll when we bought train tickets so I could go half-fare. If we had $3, we always figured how to tip for the trunks and still eat.

I know what it's like not to have food in the fridge or money to buy more.

I lived on couches for something like six months. I had no home. I was totally broke. I would stay at a friend's house for two weeks, then move because I didn't want to become this permanent mooch.

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.

I couldn't make ends meet. I tried Red Lobster. I tried Wal-Mart. I tried all these places and I couldn't make it. I couldn't. So, I tried this gentlemen's club, and, you know, I worked there, and it was just awful in those places. It was terrible.

The thing I remember about New York was how little I felt. I arrived with one small bag and $15.

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