Privileged Background Quotes

I was not the son of a worker or lacking in material or social resources for a relatively comfortable existence; I could say I miraculously escaped wealth.

I felt it was a privilege that I came from such a rich background. I had the best of both worlds. My mother was a Shia Muslim, while my father was a janoi-clad man. He never pretended to be secular.

I always knew the Sixties wasn't a revolution. It really was just a bunch of university students with wealthy parents having fun.

You know some of the people in The Strokes, yeah, their parents had success - but we didn't live like yuppies.

People always assume I went to public school, which I didn't, so that immediately puts me somewhere.

I grew up in a very white, privileged, old-fashioned society in South Africa and went to a boarding school run by nuns.

They're smart in Orange County. Smart and rich - just how I like 'em.

I really do fervently believe that every child deserves to have the kind of access to educational opportunities, broadly defined, including music and sports, that I enjoyed. So, I'm trying to do my part, and I believe that all of us with a privileged background who are fortunate enough to have had that kind of access have a responsibility to try to pass it on.

To be a billionaire, you have got to get lucky.

Scratch a Yale man with both hands and you'll be lucky to find a coast-guard. Usually you find nothing at all.

My parents are very successful, and I went to the nicest private school in the Seattle area. I was lucky. But I never had any trust funds of any kind, though my dad did pay my tuition at Harvard, which was quite expensive.

I didn't just graduate from Stanford with a really good idea and a good dad.

American computer science grads often have very little exposure to the human condition. They've rarely had manual labor or service jobs. They grow up in a bubble of privilege lulled into thinking this country is a true meritocracy.

I'm not a trust-fund type.

OK, I've made a preposterous amount of money. But I was born with the attributes needed to do it.

My family are amazing. I had like, the perfect upbringing. It sucks for people like Lindsey [Lohan], but it's not her fault she's so off the rails.

I guess if you have had a good education as opposed to someone who hasn't been to school, you start off on this journey having studied Shakespeare for years and years or studied classics. I suppose why people see this big divide - the boarding school boys getting all the roles - is because they feel like some people have had a head start.

I remember feeling guilty that I had a good childhood. I thought everybody who is famous has to have a desperate childhood and work his way out of it, but I had a great one.

When I arrived at Middlesex I was the only guy who'd been to public school and I got plenty of stick. But it wasn't held against me for long.

Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.

Since my education, I've done quite untraditional things. There are very few Etonians who went to Rada. And far fewer Etonians - certainly when I was there - went to Cambridge. I don't know whether it's the same now. Most people I knew went to Oxford, because it seemed more of an easy bridge.

Noble descent and worth, unless united with wealth, are esteemed no more than seaweed.

I was privileged in terms of where I grew up, and I come from a very loving, supportive household. But when I began to go off the rails at boarding school, my behaviour wasn't a result of an upbringing but more something that was going on within me.

It is an advantage to be born in Kapoor family and to be known by that name, but it also a burden because there are lots of expectations from you.

David Blunkett and I both take the same view that it is scandalous that someone from North Tyneside, Laura Spence, with the best qualifications and who wants to be a doctor, should be turned down by Oxford University using an interview system more reminiscent of the old school network and the old school tie than justice. It is about time for an end to that old Britain where what matters more are the privileges you are born with, rather than the potential you actually have.