Gilbert Highet Quotes

I used to have to borrow textbooks from my mate in another class. When he was away I'd have no textbooks and the teacher would say, 'Anh, you have to go to detention.' I didn't want to tell her my mum didn't have the money.

I mean, look, teachers don't do their job for the money, obviously, because we pay them ridiculously little amounts for what they put in. Most of them come out of their own pocket for materials and things to help the children and all that.

I'm embarrassed every time I look a teacher in the eye, because we ask them to do so much for so little.

I lived below the official American poverty line until I was 31.

Military pay has been allowed to lag behind to the point where career enlisted men with families to feed have been forced to resort to food stamps.

When I was a student, I couldn't afford anything.

Growing up, I was poor. In college, I was poor. I never had anything.

Well, maybe it was just that I wasn't going to like anybody because I had to work and I had to explain to my teachers why I wasn't keeping up. I'd fall asleep and things in class and they'd lecture me about the reality of their classroom. I said, 'You want to see my reality?' I opened up my backpack to where you usually keep your pencils. That's where I kept my bills... electric bills, rent... That was my reality.

The fight to make ends meet, keeps a man upon his feet.

Times were so hard it was difficult to feed and lodge humans, much less animals.

I think people who work and being alive and paying your bills and feeding your kids is hard. It's hard to have the space. Quite frankly, I'm in a privileged position to think about things, to read about things and to educate myself about things. A lot of people just don't have the time.

I was born and raised during Depression Years when we were on County relief and we all went out and we hustled. we worked. I worked in a restaurant, I washed dishes.

I can spare a dime, brother, but in these morally inflationary times, a dime goes a lot farther if it's demanding work rather than adding to the indignity of relief.

I'm not someone who's an immigrant who's struggling in that way, but between New York and L.A., I had someone tell me very early on, "If you're going to be broke anywhere, it's better to be broke in L.A. At least the weather is nice." I was like, "You're right." I didn't take them up on that.

Life is hard, money doesn't care, your tears don’t add value

No one should have to get a PhD in economics to survive in this economy.

We are paying teachers who are in charge of our human capital, arguably more important than our financial capital, a very tiny fraction of what Wall Streeters are paid.

America has become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day.

I never want to get to that level of poverty where taking a bath has to be a hot-pot experience.

The problem was money and the indignities of life without it. Every stroller, cell phone, Yankees cap, and SUV he saw was a torment. He wasn't covetous, he wasn't envious. But without money he was hardly a man.

In Liberia, our salary scales are so low that our judicial system has become corrupt over the years. Now, we need to do some things ourselves.

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.

I was pretty poor for a long time. Not *poor* poor. But college student poor. I lived for most of my adult life living on student wages, then after I got my MA and started teaching, I lived on teacher's wages, which isn't much better.

Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist.

Being broke is not a disgrace, it is only a catastrophe.