Kimberly Guilfoyle Quotes

I am not a product of privilege, I am a product of opportunity

I'm aware people will think I've had an easy way into a dream career. My view is, if anyone has opportunities, they'll take them. My surname opens doors, but those doors will slam firmly if I'm no good.

My father is a taxi driver, and my mother ran a small business. I hadn't even met a barrister before I got my first shot at the legal profession. But back then, I was lucky enough to be given a break - I can't help but wonder if I would be so lucky today.

Look, I'm not saying you can't make it if you grew up from a wealthy situation. I mean, a ton of people have.

There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure.

I want to prove that you don't have to come from Oxford University or Rada - and you don't have to have parents that support you - to succeed.

My mother doesn't have much of a social life with other A-list people. Which in a way I'm very grateful for, because if I do make something of my career I will be able to say it wasn't because I was a Chaplin.

Inherited wealth, that is not what America is based upon.

A white boy that makes C's in college can make it to the White House.

When I was a kid, my parents never let me use race as an excuse. They'd say, 'When you walk into a room and it's all white, those kids have to work to stand out, not you.'

The modern world is a meritocracy where you earn your own luck, old school ties count for nothing, and inherited privilege can even lose a guy a clear parliamentary majority.

I didn't go to the right schools, didn't come from a well-known family, nor was I even remotely connected to a powerful publishing dynasty.

I don't believe that the American dream should be reserved for those who are born into the elite or somehow have been given an advantage over others. My growing-up experience is probably the most important thing that guides my priorities and my work today.

Our country has become the land of opportunity to those born without inheritance.

To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth ought not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration.

In a country where there is no privileged class, genius and industry may attain the highest honors.

After a point, it doesn't matter where you come from. There are many star kids who haven't done well in the industry and rank newcomers who have done amazingly well.

There are people a lot smarter, a lot more talented than I am, people who've accomplished things I can only imagine. Often, they started from the most humble of circumstances. That's my message: freedom and opportunity. That's the American Dream.

I definitely think if you're born into the industry, you get easier access, but that's about it. I have never denied that, but after that, only talent and hard work sustains you.

I've been lucky to be born in Spain to a good family. But some team-mates reached the same position from a tough background. Football is equal, and it doesn't matter where you come from.

The mantra I grew up with was that no matter where you came from, hard work and education could set you free.

It doesn't matter where you're from. You can be from the hood or the suburbs. You can be poor with no education or a college graduate. No matter your background, you can win.

You know, you work hard but play by the rules, you can rise. You can do well. That's what we're taught. That's what we believe. That's what we think of as America. Problem is, there are just generations of people in this country who do not think that.

People don't rise from nothing.

I'm John the Fourth, so I think there's a lot of things in life that have been truly handed to me by the hard work and the pain of others.