M.I.A. Quotes

In my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags. There were days I had only one meal... I walked miles and crossed rivers to school every day. Didn't have power, didn't have generators, studied with lanterns, but I never despaired.

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 was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life. There were lots of kids from different races and poor families. People had to struggle to get through the day.

These years of the Ecole Normale were an ordeal. Nothing was handed to me on the first try.

I experienced firsthand what it means to be poor, what it means to go hungry, and that, I think, may be the reason, the root cause of why I'm able to work so hard, even these days.

It's much more interesting to watch someone who is ill-equipped to solve their problem fight to solve their problem than wallow in the knowledge that they're ill-equipped to solve their problems.

When I was a kid, I had to fight for everything.

I was homeless for about 8 months, I refused to live with my dad or anyone for that matter. So I stayed somewhere that had no hot water, ever, no heat, I told myself I have to be strong and get through it on my own.

You don't know how hard I've tried to be left standing all by myself.

I've seen my family work so hard and come up, and I've seen it all get taken away. I had to man up, and part of that was sleeping in my car, getting an apartment for a month, and getting evicted the next month. Staying in the $25 - $35 hotels. I just never panicked. I stayed focused and I never surrendered.

Young people need plenty of difficulties to achieve something.... If you receive a little money for this, a little money for that, everything becomes mediocre, and collapses ignominiously.

I've had my ups. I've had my downs, but I've been able to push through every obstacle that's been thrown my way.

If you're going through hell, keep going.

I've always believed in survival.

When I made my Broadway debut, I was still cleaning houses, something I'd done since I went out on my own at 15.

It wasn't poverty that drove me on.

We were very poor and my family lost everything during the war - our home and our identity. But I'm a believer in luck and think the social conditions you're born into provide the opportunity for you to prove your luck. And I suppose I've been lucky.

Life wasn't easy growing up; it was frustrating. If I had been a better reader, then that would have come easily, sports would have come easily, everything would have come easily, and I never would have realized that the way you get ahead in life is hard work.

My family didn't have money, and I think it made me fearless. I'm willing to try everything and not be afraid because what's the worst that can be happen? It might not work out, but I can't be worse off than when I was a kid.

Circumstances have rarely favored great men. A lowly beginning is no bar to a great career. The boy who works his way through college may have a hard time of it, but he will learn how to work his way in life, and will usually take higher rank in school and in after life than his classmate who is the son of a millionaire.

We've had some tough times, but we've hung in there.

Everything that I've ever been able to accomplish in skating and in life has come out of adversity and perseverance.

I grew up in this poor place, with very limited circumstances, at about 16 years of age was sent by my family to work, and instead of remaining in the position into which I was sent, I somehow worked my way out of it without any help from anyone, just luck.

I am determined to go through the horror of this world.

I had to fend for myself from the time I was 17 years old. I was a high-school dropout. I wasn't quite living on the streets, but I didn't have a lot of hope.