Lori Petty Quotes

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?

I realized eventually that when I ran out of places to stay and found myself on the D train and in Central Park, I was actually homeless.

I was 14, and I left on my own. Living in a subway train, and police used to come in with a nightstick and say, 'You can't sleep here.' I'd get up and go across the street, get on another train, and go back the other way.

I would hang out with my friends, and they would make me sing in exchange for food. I'd tag along just so I could eat. Then we would go to the park, and I'd sleep there with other homeless kids.

To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.

My mother and I took over abandoned buildings to sleep in.

I was in the streets at eight, nine years old.

My dad was a street kid for seven years - he was homeless.

My folks kicked me out of the crib, so I was homeless, living out the whip.

Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter.

Nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.

I was able to do The Saint of Fort Washington, on the relationship between two homeless men.

The beggar wears all colors fearing none.

When I was living in New York and didn't have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I'd think, that'll be good, that'll be a good spot for me when I'm homeless.

I've been homeless on a few occasions.

Normally street children are shown in terms of the tragedy of their lives - which is true - but there's also another dimension: their wisdom, dignity and enormous capacity for survival.

At 13, when I was a runaway, I was taken in by the most amazing drag queens in Portland, Ore. We didn't always know where our next meal was coming from, but there was so much camaraderie and love. Not to mention, those girls could paint a face, and I learned how because of them.

Sometimes I put on a ski mask and dress in old clothes, go out on the streets and beg for quarters.

What in the name of humanity is to become of them—where are they to go?

But where else should they sleep?

I've been so transient, I've been on my own since I was 16. I didn't even have my own place until I was 32 years old. I literally lived out of bags for 16-plus years.

I had very few friends. There was nobody I could trust. I left home when I was fifteen. I lived in Washington Square Park.

I lost an apartment. l became homeless for 11 months and squatted in a building on Sullivan Street in lower Manhattan.

When I was around 18, I got kicked out of my parents' house, and I wasn't allowed to take anything with me. I slept on YMCA towels for a whole semester in university before my father found out and bought me a mattress. I felt really free because I was finally living on my own, but I was also really depressed because I had nothing.