Tom Brokaw Quotes

Growing up during the Depression, we didn't have much, but we had each other, we had our friends, and that was pretty much all we needed. I was aware that some people had more, but those who did, shared.

I grew up in an era of pretty severe poverty. My parents weathered the Great Depression, and money was always a very big concern. I was weaned on a shortage mentality and placed in foster homes largely because there simply wasn't enough money to take care of the most basic of needs.

The 24% unemployment reached at the depths of the Great Depression was no picnic.

My parents were hardworking. They made every penny stretch as far as possible. That was probably the major reason everything they gave me was always two or three sizes too large.

My parents were both in the army for 20 years and then worked in government departments; but they had gone through the Great Depression and known lean times. They always remained extremely frugal and lived far below their means.

People who didn't know the depression just don't know what being poor means.

My mother lived through the Great Depression. Her family of 11 children pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and moved to wherever there was work at the time. And in rural Oklahoma, that wasn't easy to find.

'The Little Rascals' was set against the background of the Great Depression: the characters were living in poverty. It's just that it wasn't focused on it. It was focused on what makes childhood universal. We're all laughing at kids because we see ourselves in them; we remember our childhood.

My parents were not professionals. They were products of the Depression.

We barely had lights, but my mom always made sure we had food on the table and somewhere to sleep.

I saw certain things that I think maybe other kids are protected from. Like, I saw my parents struggling. I knew that we were cutting out coupons and buying dented cans because they were cheaper. And all our furniture was from the garbage. It was just - and to me because I was a kid, all that stuff was really exciting.

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

During the Depression years, I began to identify to some extent with the unemployed, the organization for the unemployed at that period.

I was born in 1929, that was the depression, so the golf course was manned by my father and two guys, they worked for my dad and they took me with them everywhere they went. And it was fun.

In the Great Depression, you bought something if you had the cash to buy it.

It was the height of the Depression, and suddenly I am earning pots of money.

The great majority of people are calm, resourceful, altruistic or even beyond altruistic, as they risk themselves for others. We improvise the conditions of survival beautifully.

As far as I was concerned, the Depression was an ill wind that blew some good. If it hadn't occurred, my parents would have given me my college education. As it was, I had to scrabble for it.

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.

My parents were children during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and it scarred them. Especially my father, who saw destitution in his Brooklyn, New York neighborhood; adults standing in so called 'bread lines,' children begging in the streets.

My parents scrimped and saved all their lives, to the point where my mother used a disgusting old oven mitt that was stained and partly patched together with a skirt I made in seventh grade.

One summer vacation, I carried water to the town market to sell it, and I used some of the money I made to help a neighbour.

Mother had to support herself at age 18 because it was during the depression and when my grandfather lost the farm and there was no place for her; she worked as an assistant to a maid.

As a young man, I lived through the Great Depression, when banks failed and so many lost their jobs and homes and went hungry. I was fortunate to have a job at a canning factory that paid 25 cents an hour.

Cheerfulness is a very great help in fostering the virtue of charity. Cheerfulness itself is a virtue.