Joseph Heller Quotes

My parents are very successful, and I went to the nicest private school in the Seattle area. I was lucky. But I never had any trust funds of any kind, though my dad did pay my tuition at Harvard, which was quite expensive.

I had, probably, a more challenging experience growing up than most middle-class chicks.

You mustn't forget the circumstances I have been brought up in, the little education I have had.

I don't come from a privileged background.

I do come from fairly humble beginnings.

When were you born, who are your parents, where did you grow up? None of us earns these things. These things were given to us. So when we strip away all of our luck and our privilege, and we consider where we'd be without them, it becomes much easier to see someone who's poor and say, "That could be me." And that's empathy.

I was not born into a rich family or a family of government officials.

Poverty can teach lessons that privilege cannot.

I'm not a trust-fund type.

I was raised in a lower-income family, and we were wild.

I didn't come from a trailer park. I grew up middle class and my dad had money and my mom made my lunch. I got a car when I was sixteen. I'm proud of that.

I'm not the pedigree kid. I'm not classically trained. I didn't come from the fancy home, no.

My kids never had the advantage I had: I was born poor.

I was an anomaly because my father was a Harvard man, and he came from a family of poor people.

My father was raised in an orphanage, and my mother was an immigrant from Poland whose first childhood memory was of hunger. Somehow, despite all of that, I am called a member of the 'elite.' If so, I damned well earned it.

I don't know fancy big words, because I didn't have a rich mother who sent her to fancy schools.

I came from a good family and a nice area, but I went to a rough state school.

I had little or no opportunity when I started out in life.

A lot of people have it tougher than I do.

I grew up in an upper-income household, in an accepting environment, and with incredible educational opportunities.

There's not enough opportunity, and I feel like you can't control where you're born or where you're brought up.

I grew up upper middle class.

I grew up with pretty much nothing - in the hood, the ghetto - whatever you want to call it.

My dad was born with no money.

I wouldn't say I grew up with a silver spoon. Yeah, I was very fortunate. I have a great family.