Ellen Burstyn Quotes

Painting pictures didn't make me a lot of money. I have to eat.

Growing up, we didn't have any money - we shopped where you picked your shoes out of a bin. When I was little, I said, 'When I grow up, I'm going to have nice shoes.'

It's very difficult when you have $1.50 per day to spend on food and drink, but for people who live this reality, that money also has to cover medical expenses and education, fuel and shelter - sometimes for an entire family.

There were days when my father didn't have money for food, and we slept hoping the next day something could be got from work.

Let me tell you something: I have members in my charter who, after paying their rent and house bills and taking care of their families, don't even have enough money left over to pay the fifteen dollars a week dues.

None of us want to ever face a choice between putting food on the table or paying rent.

We came from nothing really. One house. Ten people. Even days the lights was off. The worst days was not eating. Surviving off rice and toast.

I was working at Lowes and Target, then FedEx, and still did not have enough money to pay rent on my own.

Anybody who lives in Colombia knows that if you don't have any money - I tell you what - you don't have many options.

Yeah, I'll basically do anything to make money for food.

I know exactly what it's like to not have a penny. I know exactly what it's like trying to get a job. I know exactly what it's like having bloody one tin of Ambrosia left in the cupboard. But I know I can survive.

I just want to tell you what it's like not to have Planned Parenthood... you have to give your kids Ramen noodles at the end of the month to fill up their little bellies so they won't cry. You have to give them mayonnaise sandwiches. They get very few fruits and vegetables because they're expensive.

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.

We didn't really feel poor. You don't know that as a kid, but we really didn't have any cash. When machinery broke down, we didn't have money for parts, so we did our best to fix it.

Every day, families in the United States face the stark choice between a roof over their heads and food on the table. Buying health insurance, owning a home, and saving up for college are just too far out of their reach.

I traveled with my mother, Lela, and there was never enough money. I always had to roll down my silk stockings and carry a doll when we bought train tickets so I could go half-fare. If we had $3, we always figured how to tip for the trunks and still eat.

My senior year I was basically supporting myself, so it was like, Do you want to eat and pay the rent, or do you want to go to school? I wanted to eat and pay the rent.

Like everyone, I am formed by my background, and mine was - well, we didn't have a lot of money. I didn't live in a cardboard box, but I did live in a place where, at the end of the week, the money was gone.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

I know what it's like not to have food in the fridge or money to buy more.

Basically as a working class boy I understand when there's not enough money to put food on the table and not knowing where the next dollar comes in from. When you've been in that environment as a child, you never lose it.

Money was tight and Mum used to do two jobs to support us.

It was the early 1970s and I was recently divorced. I had three kids and was totally broke. I managed to find work back east on the straw-hat circuit - summer stock - but couldn't afford hotels, so I lived out of the back of my truck, under a hard shell.

I grew up in poverty. For 25 years I was fed on aid.

My son tried to work in films and he ultimately gave it up, he finally couldn't make a living, he couldn't support himself. He worked all the time and he didn't make enough money to have a house, have an apartment.