In my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman.
I grew up incredibly poor and went to school and had a very average upbringing.
From the depths of the West of Europe, a young child will be born of poor people, he who by his tongue will seduce a great troop; his fame will increase towards the realm of the East.
There's a real sense of desperation when you grow up in poverty.
I don't have any extraordinary gifts. I'm just an average Joe who grew up very poor in rural Alabama.
I started life in a poor family and could not even afford a proper tertiary education.
I don't know what I did in this life to deserve all of this. I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream.
I was the poorest kid in my school, poorest kid in my town, poorest family. That stayed with me forever.
I don't come from a lot of money. In fact, I don't come from any money.
I've never had money before in my life. Ever. Never, ever.
I myself am from a very poor background; I experienced firsthand poverty in this country, and that is not unrelated to my desire, from the moment I became president, to make a priority of poverty reduction in this country.
The kids who take up athletics actually come from modest to poor backgrounds. They make it on their own steam; some of them don't even have the basic means like shoes and enough food to eat.
I came from poverty and was part of those circumstances.
I seen the worst of the worst. I deserve every blessing I receive I'm from the dirt.
I have real good parents. They poor. They have regular, poor jobs and what not. They real good people and what not; I was just raised in a bad society.
I was born to poor because of honest parents.
I was born dirt-poor with barely a stitch on my back, and no name or prestige attached to me, and no real clout or connections.
We were poor when I was young but the difference was that the government didn't come around telling you you were poor.
We weren't the most fortunate family growing up.
I was born in Jerusalem with a religious background and a rabbi as a father... it was rather poor, but what we did have, we did have books.
My parents came from a poor background and worked their way up because of education. They saw it as a way to succeed. So they cared about me getting straight A grades when I was growing up.
Me, coming from a low-income background, I really didn't take my studies serious as a young kid.
I grew up in a council house in a poor Scottish town. I came of age during the recession of the mid-1980s when unemployment in my area reached 40 per cent.
Before the arrival of the Credit Union, people who were from the poor background or a working class background couldn't borrow from banks.
I was raised really poor and so was my husband.
