Joe R. Lansdale Quotes

My family and I built my whole career from scratch.

You can say that Mitt Romney started with nothing! He didn't get an inheritance from his dad.

Madam Walker was a woman who transformed herself in a very American, rags-to-riches way.

Donald Trump is living proof of the American Dream. A kid from Queens, New York, who made it big. And, yeah - he'll be the first to tell you he isn't perfect. But who is?

The bottom line is that if I did it, you can do it. I got rich without the benefit of a college education or a penny of capital but making many errors along the way. I went from being a pauper.. a hippie dropout on the dole, living in a crummy room without the proverbial pot to piss in, without even the money to pay the rent, without a clue as to what to do next.. to being rich...

Yes, we worship the idea of the "self-made man" - otherwise we'd go on strike against Bill Gates having all that money! We worship that idea.

I was a poor kid. I came from nothing. We didn't have any money; a lot of times we didn't have any food, and now, all of a sudden, I'm a superhero in a Marvel movie? Talk about the American dream, man - I'm living it.

I want to categorically say that whatever I am, I have made a space for myself in Indian politics and media out of my own perseverance and hard work.

I wanted to find raw talent and help build it from scratch. I wanted to build from rags to riches. That's the way Ear Drummers did it. We took over the music industry from my mom's basement. That's why my first album is going to be called 'Made It Out the Basement.'

Top performers in their fields such as Debbie Moore, Jean-Christophe Novelli, Deborah Meaden and Jo Malone, did not go to university and are just a handful of the individuals who show that with drive and determination, you can succeed by treading your own path.

Someone that I'm really inspired by, and that I look up to, is Oprah. It's amazing how she created such an empire.

America is fascinated with seeing people have nothing and turn it to something.

I'm a true Hollywood success story - knew no one, had no connections.

My grandmother was divorced, and she had 10 children herself. She never finished high school. She started selling lace on the side of the road and then grew that into a multimillion-dollar business - a retail store selling mostly furniture and appliances.

It's really cool to come from nothing and essentially be a nobody and make yourself somebody.

I didn't have that when I invented MyPillow. I didn't have a safety net.

I want to go my own way - to build my own career. To be known as Emre Can.

I'm really simple and I'm extremely ambitious.

He needs both patience and speed.

Lincoln was not great because he was born in a log cabin, but because he got out of it

I was told I had to go to business school to succeed. I gave it a shot, but eventually dropped out to bootstrap a restaurant with just a Visa card and a $20,000 line of credit. Everyone told me restaurants were hard work (and they were right! I have so much respect for anyone in the restaurant business). I ran the restaurant for two years, sold a franchise, decided to change paths, and sold the whole operation at a modest profit.

God has nothing to say to the self-righteous.

She was beautiful and terrifying, savage and pure.

This Force, by troth, I'll never comprehend! It doth control and also doth obey? And 'tis within and yet it is beyond, 'Tis both inside and yet outside one's self? What paradox! What fickle-natur'd pow'r! Aye: frailty, thy name-- belike--is Force.

My father stood behind a bar in the back of the room all those years, so one day I could stand behind a podium in the front of a room. That journey, from behind that bar to behind this podium, goes to the essence of the American miracle - that we're exceptional not because we have more rich people here. We're special because dreams that are impossible anywhere else, come true here.