Beth Ditto Quotes

My father, who was a hair colourist, died when I was young, so my mother had to work very hard. But at the same time, I do believe that if you have everything, it is easy to make a dinner. When you only have flour and water and olives and potatoes, you have to be much more creative, and that's what my mother is all about.

When my trust fund ran out, I panicked. I have a lot of admiration for the kids who come to the big city with nothing and make it.

When I first came out, I was a film student, and my mom sewed clothes. I was already doing a million things then, whatever it took to survive. If I had to braid someone's hair to get one pound for my lunch money, that's what I did.

Out of economic hardship can come change - we are suddenly cast onto our wits and our talents and our resources and our strengths, as we lose all the choices we once had.

They can put me in a jungle. Still, I can create.

Since I was younger I've been making the best out of nothing.

I showed up in L.A. with $500 and a backpack and I stayed at a shelter, so nobody handed me anything. I worked for every single thing that I have.

I'll dispose of my teeth as I see fit, and after they've gone, I'll get along. I started off living on gruel, and by God, I can always go back to it again.

My mother was making $135 a week, but she had resilience and imagination. She might take frozen vegetables, cook them with garlic, onion and Spam, and it would taste like a four-star dinner.

Put paying your dues and all that puts so much into being a success. You have an understanding of what it's about, being on your own for three or four years and living day to day on $3, or living in an apartment with no electricity.

I come from a simple background, so I couldn't call my father and say, 'Come pay my bills,' so I had to get out there and work.

I've always been the person to look at any turmoil as temporary. I recall times where my mom was working five and six jobs, and there's still no food in the house.

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.

For any child growing up, anything is possible. We were poor growing up and you had to work hard and make it happen for yourself.

I like to see the world from different levels. Even when I'm making a candle or designing a piece, I like to sit on the floor to polish or make it from scratch. I haven't seen really tough times, but my husband has come up the hard way. He has even seen poverty.

I grew up with nothing, and that was my motivation.

All this could go tomorrow, and I would still know how to function, because I never had nothing before. I went through the struggle - it was a rough life.

I don't want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

Of all the advantages which come to any young man ... poverty is the greatest.

When you have no money, you need invention.

The poorer children were, to her mind, often better behaved, less whiny, more creative in making use of their own time, and have a well-developed sense of independence.

The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.

My mom raised us three boys by herself on welfare. It's not worse than anybody else's life.

I often think I am a better person because I lived for many years of my life with a flashlight. I have developed skills I did not think were possible - bathing with a cup of water by candlelight, for instance, and writing a story with a headlamp on.

I was not naturally talented. I didn't sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.