John le Carre Quotes

I was ashamed of it, of the poverty I came from.

I come home that morning, after I been fired, and stood outside my house with my new work shoes on. The shoes my mama paid a month's worth a light bill for. I guess that's when I understood what shame was and the color of it too. Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.

A man with money to pay for a meal can talk about hunger without demeaning himself. ... But for a man with no money hunger is a disgrace.

The worst thing about poverty is not the actual living of it, but the shame of it.

Shame, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.

Don't forget, I was the soft, pudgy kid in school that everyone made fun of.

My first job, which I had to take when not more than fifteen, was assistant to a fruit peddler. It seemed all right to me until a little girl told me snootily, 'We never deal with peddler!' Thereupon I resigned, ashamed of what I was doing.

There is nothing worse than being ashamed of parsimony or poverty.

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

I don't believe in public humiliation. It went out with the stocks.

Poverty us no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.

I couldn't walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule.

I was ashamed for people to see me struggle.

It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades.

Poverty is not a disgrace, but it's terribly inconvenient.

I was always the new kid in school, I'm the kid from a broken family, I'm the kid who had no dad showing up at the father-son stuff, I'm the kid that was using food stamps at the grocery store.

Fire is more bearable than disgrace.

You led us to the greatest humiliation France has experienced in 20 years.

I certainly was not going to add to his humiliation in the hour of defeat.

Your poverty is my shame.

I was embarrassing against Spinks.

Being on food stamps can be demeaning. Cashiers know the difference between the new plastic SNAP cards and a credit card. Some food stamp recipients say some cashiers have made them feel uncomfortable and embarrassed.

I walked on eggshells a lot. I have a bad self-esteem problem, and my father probably facilitated it. He once looked at me very seriously when I was about 15 and had whipped cream smeared all over myself. He said, 'You'd do anything for a laugh, wouldn't you?'

People called me sharktooth, Dracula. I got made fun of so much cause I couldn't afford braces.

I was the poorest kid in my school, poorest kid in my town, poorest family. That stayed with me forever.