Tom Noddy Quotes

I'll dispose of my teeth as I see fit, and after they've gone, I'll get along. I started off living on gruel, and by God, I can always go back to it again.

I have no definite talent or trade, and how I stay alive is largely a matter of magic.

When I first came out, I was a film student, and my mom sewed clothes. I was already doing a million things then, whatever it took to survive. If I had to braid someone's hair to get one pound for my lunch money, that's what I did.

But I love the idea - whether it's in my work or where I live - exploring new frontier, and I like putting myself in strange places and trying to survive and figure things out and gather up an infrastructure. I like knowing that I could figure out a way to live anywhere.

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.

I'm constantly warning people that are involved in my life that I can go busk and make a living. I can make my rent in New York City in the subway, I promise, if I'm forced to.

It is easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing, that's the Lord's test.

Since I was younger I've been making the best out of nothing.

But I've had to act and not depend on my voice so much.

My mom always told me one of the reasons that she was really happy in her life was that, if Dad never worked again, she was confident that she could support the family.

I'm me, I live from film to mouth.

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.

Because I was poor I had one special advantage. When you are poor, and basic survival is your concern, you have no alternative but to be an entrepreneur. You must take action to survive just as you must take action to seize an opportunity.

I came of age believing that, no matter what happened, I would always be able to support myself.

I come from a simple background, so I couldn't call my father and say, 'Come pay my bills,' so I had to get out there and work.

When I was around 18, I got kicked out of my parents' house, and I wasn't allowed to take anything with me. I slept on YMCA towels for a whole semester in university before my father found out and bought me a mattress. I felt really free because I was finally living on my own, but I was also really depressed because I had nothing.

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

I've been at the very bottom of poverty, and it's not so bad. It's even kind of interesting. You can live there with a certain amount of style.

I believe that being dependent makes you more vulnerable. I believe work is the greatest gift you will ever receive.

Kenya, being a third world country, from a young age your eyes are open to the real world. I'd like to think growing up there taught me to stand on my own two feet, make my own decisions about what I wanted to be.

I've worked as a labourer, driven taxis and school buses, and been a car mechanic - whatever I could do just to get by. But it does mean that I know a little bit about a lot of things.

We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it.

Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.

I wasn't sheltered or spoiled. All the money I made, I made myself.

I've always found poverty a source of strength.