Chris Gardner Quotes

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.

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.

When my trust fund ran out, I panicked. I have a lot of admiration for the kids who come to the big city with nothing and make it.

I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, so there was always a sense of struggle, but we had hope.

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.

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.

When you grow up on the other side of the tracks, you're used to taking a few bumps.

I grew up poor. The fact that I had to struggle to succeed, that wasn't a big deal to me. I'd struggled my whole life.

When it all got taken away, I was becoming a young man. So I had to sacrifice to leave my family... Sleeping in my car, getting an apartment for a month and getting evicted the next month. Staying in the $25, $50 hotels.

I've experienced poverty and plenty, and there's a lesson to be learned when you're brought up in poverty.

I was in the heart and soul of Baltimore. I definitely felt a connection to the people. They're really hard-working people that want to have a better life. And I saw the struggle that exists there.

I came from nothing. I came from the projects and welfare and ended up a millionaire with no frame of reference. I was bound to hit a wall sooner or later.

As in the rankest soil the most beautiful flowers are grown, so in the dark soil of poverty the choicest flowers of humanity have developed and bloomed.

I can be poor, I can lose a job, I can have a hospital bill that I don't know how to pay, for I can do all these things through Him who strengthens me.

When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I'd come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn't afford the bill. Suddenly, everything feels easier.

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.

No, I was two years older than the other guys. I was a war baby. My family were a lot poorer than they were. I'd had to fight too hard for anything I had in my life and to smash things up for me.

Nothing in baseball can bring me down to the level where I was growing up in Pine Bluff, crying and broke. This is fun for me. Whenever you see me slumping, nah, I don't get upset; I'm all right.

There are men and women still on the streets, and that's all they are saying Can you spare a quarter? I come from a crowd of people who were current on the outlook on life, who were social and knew where they were and had some input into how things seemed to be.

From the age of 11, I was cleaning floors, washing dishes, making sandwiches and being a cashier. Survival was the name of the game. Life was so hard that I had to struggle to keep up my standards. Under these conditions, I didn't think about science too much.

My background's working class. My parents had to work to make ends meet. We don't come from any sense of privilege.

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.

I came from a very poor family and my main dream in life was to break out of this poverty.

As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in.

I'm definitely working class, and I still believe in those values. I know that losing everything would not be an unfamiliar feeling. Meaning, if you don't have it anymore, you didn't have it to begin with.