Starting from the Bottom Quotes

I've met people at the top of companies like Accenture who started off in McDonald's.

Pretty much everyone's career starts the same way: with grunt work. Not just the cliched fetching of coffee, but other lowly tasks: taking notes in meetings, preparing paperwork, scheduling, intensive research - even flat-out doing our bosses' work for them.

You youngsters nowadays think you're to begin with living well and working easy; you've no notion of running afoot before you get on horseback.

I don't think it's so much of a disadvantage setting up from scratch.

Everybody wants the easy stuff, "Okay, I wanna be a rapper. I wish I could fight in order to get more money." They see the finished product, they see this guy Derek Jeter hitting the homerun and whatnot and say "Ooh, I wanna make $20 million a year," but they didn't see him playing sandlot ball.

You can't start at the top.

I started with nothing. Zero.

My father couldn't speak English when he went to the first grade and I had to work in a factory over Christmas and summer vacations. And I think that's the American way and one of the things that excites me about this race is that pretty much everything I've done I've started at the bottom and been able to finish at the top.

The lower you start, the more opportunities you have.

No one starts out on top. You have to work your way up.

Topcats often begin as underdogs.

Nearly every glamorous, wealthy, successful career woman you might envy now started out as some kind of schlep.

If you are going into any manufacturing establishment, don't go there by reason of any influence you may have. Start upon your own merits, and start in some lowly position, no matter what it is. Be a laborer, if you will. I don't know but that is the best way to start.

Somewhere along the line you've got to do your apprenticeship. But I'd want half a chance of being successful at it.

I started with nothing. Less than nothing.