Beth Macy Quotes

We didn't really feel poor. You don't know that as a kid, but we really didn't have any cash. When machinery broke down, we didn't have money for parts, so we did our best to fix it.

I was 20 years old. My entire possessions consisted of $5 and a sewing machine.

We were rather poor, but we always had what we needed.

What's happened to society is we've become really pretentious. But there was a time in my life where I really had to choose between boiling potatoes and paying my gas bill, so I'd buy a can of potatoes.

I grew up in a poor family. I had to cut everyone's hair, because we didn't have money for entertainment.

My father died when I was two years old. But my mother was quite capable. She raised three children with his war pension which was peanuts. Yet we did not want for anything. We grew up with a certain parsimony, which is a nice thing. Then if life gives you more good, otherwise you get used to. I'm still thrifty.

I was happy, I wasn't beaten, and I lacked nothing. But it wasn't what people expect - it was very much sort of pinching and scraping. I don't know how my mother did it.

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 remember once in junior high school, on a Friday, my mom came home from work and said to my brother and I, 'You know, between us, we have only 27 cents, but we have food in the refrigerator, we have our little garden out back, and we're happy, so we are rich.'

My wife, Sharon, and I started with nothing when we got married. I was driving a 1902 Pinto and eating off a card table.

I traveled with my mother, Lela, and there was never enough money. I always had to roll down my silk stockings and carry a doll when we bought train tickets so I could go half-fare. If we had $3, we always figured how to tip for the trunks and still eat.

I grew up without a lot of money and my parents grew up with far less money. And that's kept me in line. Really in line.

I was an only child. We were so poor, my parents and I had the same room.

I thought it was normal to recycle pants and shoes from your older cousins. That was just my way of life. At the end of the month, there was not much food in the refrigerator and you're hoping the first comes so food can come again. You never forget those things.

We weren't dirt poor, but there was no spare money kicking around. While it was very much understood that the way to a better life was through education, books were a luxury we couldn't afford. But when I was six, we actually moved opposite the central library, and that became my home from home.

He who knows how to be poor knows everything.

I try to keep the more uninteresting stuff to a minimum, unless I'm really broke.

I started out with nothing. I still have most of it.

I didn't have any extra money. But I can't say that I had a hard early career.

I've always found it very sanitary to be broke.

If we were poor, we didn't know it 'cause I guess you don't miss what you never had. So, you know, we made do with whatever. We used to make our own toys, and we used to play with spinning tops and marbles. A pocket full of marbles, and you were rich - you didn't worry about no money.

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.

I grew up in an era when money was not readily available. We were into the post-Depression years and World War II.

We lived in just a studio apartment with just a room and a bed that came out of the wall, and my mom couldn't afford even a Happy Meal. We ate Top Ramen. I had no toys, and I had, like, two shirts, a pair of jeans, and that was it. But I had my mom to myself, and I remember it being the coolest period of time. I loved it. I really loved it.