Jennifer Garner Quotes

I grew up in a household that was a labor household. My dad was a Teamster and a milk truck driver. My mother was a secretary. Neither of them got through high school. But they worked hard and they gave me very, very important opportunities to go to school, get a good education.

I was well brought up, my parents are still together. I lived in a council estate, but I don't anymore; I saw my parents buy a nice house and move me to a nice area.

John Edwards comes from working folk, just like me. John Edwards worked hard and excelled to get his education, just like me.

If you asked anybody in my family, they would have very stridently proclaimed themselves middle class. My mother and father were separated, so he doesn't count.

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.

I was not from a middle-class family at all. I did not have middle-class possessions and what have you. But I had middle-class parents who gave me what was needed to survive in society.

They made it to the middle class, my dad working as a bartender and my mother as a cashier and a maid. I didn't inherit any money from them. But I inherited something far better - the real opportunity to accomplish my dreams.

I was fortunate to grow up in a middle-class home with two hardworking parents who enjoyed both reading and mathematics.

My earliest memories are of my father explaining to me the American Dream and how he expected me to do better than he did.

My parents were not affluent people and were not - didn't come from the extremities of education. My mother had a high school diploma. I often think I so wish she'd come out of the hills in Appalachia and been able to go on to college. I think she would have made a wonderful teacher.

My 'act' was schoolwork. I was your basic, garden-variety, ambitious, upwardly mobile, hard-working Jewish boy from Brooklyn. I was bound to go beyond my parents. It was simply the way things were.

My father came from a very poor background, but I was very fortunate in the sense that we were never in need. My dad was determined to make sure that we didn't want for things. He wanted to give us more opportunity than he had, a better shot at a better life.

Both of my parents graduated from high school, both attended college, both have government jobs now. They've always been very adamant about me finishing high school and finishing college.

Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?

The Scholastic Aptitude Tests do not predict success any better than the socio economic status of the parents.

I had come to college believing in a story that if you worked hard, the American dream was reachable.

I went to a prep school in Chicago, and my dad and mom worked really hard - even though we lived in the ghetto - to get me to there. A lot of it had to do with 'Stand and Deliver' and 'Dead Poet's Society.' It does help you. It inspires you. It definitely did for me.

America is still the land of opportunity, and hard work is still a pathway to success.

For me, at least with my parents, I feel that they wanted me to have all the opportunities that they did not have, and for them, that meant going to private school.

I am a first-generation college graduate, and I'm proud to say that most of my other siblings have college degrees as well. Our parents taught us to work hard and never forget our family roots, where we came from, and how much effort it took to get to where we are today.

People's fates in life are decided largely by their schools.

In America, with education and hard work, it really does not matter where you came from; it matters only where you are going.

The American dream means that you have the chance to work hard, get an education and do great things for yourself, for your kids. The great thing in American is it doesn't matter what your last name is, doesn't matter if you're wealthy.

My parents grew up in poor families where little English was spoken, they both went to college and became teachers. They believed that anything was possible with hard work, and they particularly stressed the importance of education. They instilled that same belief in my sister and me.

I grew up believing in meritocracy and the American dream. My parents came here from India. They had no connections. My brother and I went to public schools, and both of us succeeded.