Samuel R. Delany Quotes

This could be a whole life," she thought. "You work eight hours a day covering wires to earn money to buy food and to pay for a place to sleep so that you can keep living to come back to cover more wires. Some people are born and kept living just to come to this.

Give me boredom. At least I know where I'm going to eat and sleep tonight.

The usual complaint is, 'I have no other way of earning a living.' The harsh reply can be, 'Do you have to live?'

It's frightening to think about more sanctions. When I've met North Koreans in China, they've said to me, 'You have no idea how difficult our lives are. We live like dogs.' They wake up in the morning wondering what they're going to eat for dinner.

I've done the most awful rubbish in order to have somewhere to go in the morning.

Every day, it was the same: school, homework, farm work, training. Getting hurt or dying might've been better than the life I was living.

The horse on the treadmill may be very discontented, but he is not disposed to tell his troubles, for he cannot stop to talk.

When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival.

To get enough to eat was regarded as an achievement. To get drunk was a victory.

...when we really get into hard times, where food is scarce or there is none at all, and so with clothing and shelter, money may be no good for there may be nothing to buy, and you cannot eat money, you cannot get enough of it together to burn to keep you warm, and you cannot wear it.

We had a food store at the theatre and I used to pinch food. I pinched some trousers and shirts to keep me going but they would wear out. I was virtually on the breadline.

Each year it grows harder to make ends meet - the ends I refer to are hands and feet.

I know what it's like to be hungry. I know what it's like to be homeless. I know what it's like to have to choose between breaking the law and feeding yourself. I know what it's like to take meals at shelters and at Salvation Army facilities. I know what it's like to beg for money on the streets.

When I was a kid out here in L.A., I was homeless, I didn't have any money and I was living in my car. I wasn't averse to going down to Santa Monica Boulevard and letting a guy buy me a sandwich. Know what I mean?

Sometimes survival is the worst alternative there is

Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: 'As God is my witness, and God is my witness, the Yankees aren't going to lick me. I'm going to live through this, and when it's over, I'm never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill - as God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again.

Staying alive was what we did to pass the time.

If you can imagine the area and the land in Cambodia, I mean there are hardly any roads in big parts of the country. The roads they have, in the rainy season, become just mud. So, if you’re somebody that has just one leg, or blind with no arms and you have children and you’re trying to work, and earn some money, and take care of your home, it’s hard enough to be a parent and do all of that normally.

Lucas seemed to have realized our prediciment at the same moment I had. "I haven't got my credit card with me. Kinda left in a hurry. We just spent the only cash I had in my pocket." Too-bright signs from the few open stores made mee squint. "We'd have been better off with a slingshot and Oreos.

Do I gotta go sell me a whole lotta crack for decent shelter and clothes on my back?

Boredom is your mind and body's way of telling you you're not living up to your potential.

Mama raised a hellraiser why cry, That's just life in the ghetto, do or die.

The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads.

You keep waiting for the moral of your life to become obvious, but it never does. Work, work, work: No moral. No plot. No eureka! Just production schedules and days. You might as well be living inside a photocopier. Your lives are all they're ever going to be.

You can learn so much from bad things. I feel boring. I feel like, Why is everything so easy for me? I can't wait for something crazy to f***ing happen to me. Just life. I want someone to f*** me over! Do you know what I mean?