Tough Beginnings Quotes

A lot of people, when they see my career, they hear or remember, 'Sat on the bench four years in college, got cut by the Packers, worked in a grocery store, and then won the Super Bowl.' That's kind of the timeline the people see when they hear 'Kurt Warner.'

The challenges I have faced - among them material poverty, chronic illness, and being raised by a single mother - are not uncommon, but neither have they kept me from uncommon achievements.

I started my career with a loss, getting 'slapped' by life.

Success to me is self-determined, the life I live today, to come from a kid strung out on angel dust, homeless, at some points sleeping in the street. No money, not knowing where the next meal was coming from. No sex, no relationships, people that didn't love me, didn't care about me, to where I am today... that's successful. When I signed my record deal I always wanted to be respected by my peers for my ability and my skill level.

I feel that I had been rescued from the gutter by America. One day I was under the gutter, chased by police, thinking dogs were going to get me. I laid there listening to the dogs and the gutter. The next day, there I am standing on the Olympic platform, and you hear the anthem. I was proud.

When people say, 'How did you start in comedy,' I say my family was kidnapped by ninjas when I was very young, and to get them released I had to do a killer five-minute set. And even after I did that, you know, I started doing comedy under tough circumstances, I still kept at it because I enjoyed it.

I'm a mudboy. I came from the mud, oozed out the concrete. I'm not a rose. I'm a mudboy: I came from nothing.

My first job was cleaning dog kennels. It was especially, ah, aromatic during those hot, humid Louisiana summers, but it prepared me for Hollywood.

I can't imagine as a rookie actually playing good football. I went through it.

People say they start from the bottom. If you want to see someone who's started from the bottom, go and look at my career. My first 10 fights, I think I paid for them myself. I've fought three times in one month.

You know the things I went through as a youngster, coming into the business, all the good, the bad and the ugly that came. I'd had a rough life. I grew up single parent. My mom, she was like a father to me.

I think one of the reasons I'm successful as a musician is that the first like 30 shows I played, I played with no monitors standing in front of guitar amps in a shitty, smoky warehouse where people were screaming and wasted, knocking over my gear. So shows after that seem pretty easy!

I was one of those kids, inner-city youth and finding my way. I made it. I made a success out of myself, surprisingly.

I am the girl who everyone said was never going anywhere. I guess I shocked a few people.

I lived in the projects and the ghetto, and turned the negative into a positive.

I grew up on North Saginaw, the north side of Flint, which is considered the worst part and I was able to make it; I was able to make it by just making smart decisions from a very young age.

I had an exciting, interesting childhood, to be sure, with all of the challenges that ghetto life provides - but had loving parents.

I always wanted to say I came out of the cornfields and got to the major leagues. That was my biggest thought. But now I can say I came out of the cornfields and got to the Hall of Fame.

I had challenges to overcome as a child, and that was good.

I might have been a jockey, you know. I started by riding horses bareback and holding on to the mane before they finally threw me off.

I came out of my momma's womb fighting.