Sam Esmail Quotes

I haven't always had the money rolling in. I'm a character actor; it's not like I'm Gwyneth Paltrow - so I do have hard times still in my life. And that's even more why it's like you know what, I'm not that different from people going through it. I struggle; I look for a better deal at the grocery store.

When I designed my first house in L.A., I didn't have any money - I did it all on my own. I liked that.

My parents scrimped and saved all their lives, to the point where my mother used a disgusting old oven mitt that was stained and partly patched together with a skirt I made in seventh grade.

I grew up working in Canada so everything was low budget.

When I was in college, I lost my scholarship one year. I had enough money for tuition, but not room and board. So I camped in the hills.

People think that celebs make a lot more money than we do. We look for bargains and we do a lot of stuff on our own.

I think being on a constraint with money makes you much more creative.

Tough times call for tough choices and pinching every penny.

I had a job since I was 12 years old. I did everything under the sun. I pumped gas. I worked at gas stations, car washes, dry cleaners, anything and everything that I had to do to pay the bills. So for me, I know what it's like to hustle.

I did all kinds of things as a young person to try to make money. I had a chicken operation - I sold chickens. I can remember going to high school football games as a ten-year-old and gathering Coca-Cola bottles, 'cause you'd turn them in and get a nickel. I wanted not to remain idle.

I plunged into the job of creating something from nothing.... Though I hadn't a penny left, I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a living God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve.

When you have no money, you need invention.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.

I think my career has been instances of me trying to figure out ways to get around doing it the right way because I don't think I have the tools to do it the right way. There's a talent to that.

When I was little, I would open up lawnmowers and try to make them go faster. I wasn't strong enough to do some things, so I'd wait for my dad to get home from work to help me. He was great, but he never really encouraged me, and I'll be the same if I have kids: I'll leave them to do their own thing.

My mom was not able to buy us the expensive Air Jordans, so if I wanted something that was a little bit nicer, my brother and I, we had to go earn money for it.

It's amazing how small business owners figure out how to stretch a dollar as far as they possibly can.

I remember my mother and I sitting down counting off our pennies to pay our bills. We really had nothing.

You coach at a have-not school, and you have to have a competitiveness and a resolve and resiliency about you that's different, or you'll never make it. You've got to find a way to do more with less.

We couldn't afford to move, so we decided to start up a model agency.

My parents were really poor. We never bought books because you could go to the library. It would be stupid to buy one.

I didn't have the greatest equipment or the greatest facilities. I would see people with new shoes and better cars. I knew what I wanted and what I had to do to get what I wanted. I became a very Spartan person at a young age because of that.

The kids who take up athletics actually come from modest to poor backgrounds. They make it on their own steam; some of them don't even have the basic means like shoes and enough food to eat.

I've always sworn that not having enough money has saved me from mediocrity.

Of all the advantages which come to any young man ... poverty is the greatest.