Carmen Dell'Orefice Quotes

As an actress for most of my life, I am profoundly familiar with poverty.

I had spent many days hungry; had slept on railway stations at times because I did not have money to pay for a hotel room... there were moments when I felt I had compromised my dignity as a human being and as an actor.

I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.

When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee.

I was 20 years old. My entire possessions consisted of $5 and a sewing machine.

I didn't have life that good coming up. I wasn't born with a lot of money. We weren't dirt poor, but we weren't rich. All I knew was struggle.

I didn't have much but my mum and grandma gave me as much as they could, but we weren't a rich family and we had to work hard for what we got.

I used to walk to the Washington Monument from North L Street Northwest. And I was so hungry at times, I would stop and look into the trash cans, and if there was a half a sandwich, I would take that sandwich and eat it. It was just a matter of survival. I didn't think much of it, but it was just the way things were.

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 know what it's like to struggle for cash. When I went to drama school, I worked as a chambermaid to make ends meet.

I was starving before I hit Journey. Very, very rough times... I didn't know where the next pay check was gonna come.

I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life. There were lots of kids from different races and poor families. People had to struggle to get through the day.

It wasn't poverty that drove me on.

We were very poor and my family lost everything during the war - our home and our identity. But I'm a believer in luck and think the social conditions you're born into provide the opportunity for you to prove your luck. And I suppose I've been lucky.

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.

I grew up very nice. But after college, my father said you're on you own. So I was dead broke for years. So I know what it's - I lived on 600 dollars a month for six years. I know what it's like to be dead broke. I feel bad for people who are struggling now.

If you don't have trouble paying the rent, you have trouble doing something else; one needs just a certain amount of trouble.

I lived by the candlelight for two years because I couldn't afford power. It was nice and romantic at the time, but if you can't afford power you're pretty broke. You endure it.

It was a real hand-to-mouth existence in those early days - I'd have whatever dry cereal there was in the house for breakfast, 30 cents to spend on lunch and a hot dog for dinner. I did that for years. So there was definitely a hunger in me, of various kinds, to succeed.

I had some years of definite frustration. Auditioning and not working as much as I would have liked to, or working and being paid a pittance, and sort of scrounging by in New York and sleeping on a chair that folded out into a bed.

As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in.

I've had a lot of luck. If I didn't I'd be washing bottles in Russia.

At my lowest I was making nothing, of course.

It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.

I wasn't born with a golden spoon in my mouth. It was a really tough life.