Going From Rags To Riches Quotes & Sayings

The ultimate idea of rags-to-riches success in America is the Hollywood movie star. — Marin Ireland

Unfortunately I have no rags-to-riches story to tell. Money never played a big role for me. My parents just had it. — Stelios Haji-Ioannou

We are the rags to riches story, okay, the Robertson's are. Okay? We had very humble beginnings. Everybody's trying to figure out what, what's behind it, and all the Robertsons say, 'Hey, it's divine intervention.' Me personally, okay, God's gonna take 'Duck Dynasty' where he wants it to go, okay, and to the people that he wants it to go to. — Si Robertson

But the available light in Twisted River was dim and growing dimmer. The dance-hall door blew (or was slammed) closed, cutting off Teresa Brewer as suddenly as if Six-Pack had taken the singer's slender throat in her hands. When the dance-hall door blew (or was kicked) open again, Tony Bennett was crooning "Rags to Riches." Dominic didn't for a moment doubt that the town's eternal violence was partly spawned by irredeemable music. — John Irving

My life has often been described as 'from rags to riches,' but in fact, the Rosses were never raggedy. — Diana Ross

James Taylor may be an all-American boy but he isn't Horatio Alger, and the lionizing of many rock stars by the rock press has as much to do with old fashioned rags-to-riches stories as does the straight culture's deification of its idols. — Jon Landau

Gypsy [Rose Lee] is as unique as she is timeless. Her story is classic Americana, and the strangest rags-to-riches saga you'll ever read; I like to call it Horatio Alger meets Tim Burton. — Karen Abbott

Your incredible brain can take you from rags to riches, from loneliness to popularity, and from depression to happiness and joy - if you use it properly. — Brian Tracy

People are complaining of having rags and not riches, but I find it a blessing just to have rags, to wipe away the dirt and dust that may come in the course of life. — Anthony Liccione

The extent of his influence across jazz, across American music, and around the world has such continuing stature that he is one of the few who can easily be mentioned with Stravinsky, Picasso and Joyce. His life was the embodiment of one who moves from rags to riches, from anonymity to internationally imitated innovator. Louis Daniel Armstrong supplied revolutionary language that took on such pervasiveness that it became commonplace, like the light bulb, the airplane, the telephone. — Stanley Crouch

My life has been sensationalised into a rags to riches story. — Jonathan Rhys Meyers

While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control. — Howard Zinn

Rags-to-riches story? I've heard that gospel before, no thanks. I find no greater inspiration than the riches-to-rags story of redemption, the story of God leaving His golden throne to pursue a wretch like me. — T. William Watts

The American dream was not, at least at the beginning, a rags-to-riches type of narrow materialism. — Charles A. Reich

Its humble beginnings are that of a parasite, growing in something that is alive, draining its host of beauty. It's clever - the plight of the splinter. A sort of rags to riches story. — Tarryn Fisher

Well, that's baseball. Rags to riches one day and riches to rags the next. But I've been in it 36 years and I'm used to it. — Casey Stengel

From recovery to rags and rags to recovery symbolizes art - a perfect compilation of human imperfections. — Criss Jami

[Autobiographies] are all the same - it's always rags-to-riches or I-slept-with-so-and-so. Damned if I'm going to say that. — Deborah Kerr

Adam had once told Gansey, Rags to riches isn't a story anyone wants to hear until after it's done. — Maggie Stiefvater

The faith that anyone could move from rags to riches - with enough guts and gumption, hard work and nose to the grindstone - was once at the core of the American Dream. — Robert Reich

Let us be thankful for the fools,' Mark Twain wrote with typically dark humor in 1897. 'But for them the rest of us could not succeed.' Of all the paradoxes of failure in America, surely this is the darkest. Long ago, we saw through old fables of rags to riches; it is still fun to dream, but we know that we are partaking of a cultural myth. But if we do not quite believe in that kind of success, our faith in the myths of failure is unshaken. We are merrily cynical about whether the average tycoon really tugged on those bootstraps, but we still believe with deadly seriousness that the reasons for failure are usually individual-- "in the man." Failure is not the dark side of the American Dream; it is the foundation of it. The American Dream gives each of us the chance to be a born loser. — Scott A. Sandage

As they left the pier and walked into the park, Chahda looked around appreciatively. "Nice place, this. Capital of New Caledonia. Big island, has 8,548 square mile, also has 53,245 peoples. Eleven thousand in Noumea. That is what says the Worrold Alm-in-ack."

Rick and Scotty laughed. It was like old times to hear Chahda quoting from The World Almanac. A Bombay beggar boy, he had educated himself with only the Almanac for his textbook, and he had laboriously memorized everything in it. — John Blaine

I was the epitome of rags to riches. — Jason Mitchell

You were a well-respected agent, Michael, a rags-to-riches fairytale ending. Until you became disgraced. Now it appears your own organization wishes to be rid of you. Why is this?"
"My gun turned back into a pumpkin. — Nenia Campbell

The oat is the Horatio Alger of cereals, which progressed, if not from rags to riches, at least from weed to health food. — Waverley Root

This is truly a rags to riches story which doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Hope is offered to those who face similar challenges that in this great Country dreams can be realized when work ethic and passion lead the way. — George M. Gilbert

It's the opposite of the collapse of the fantasy.
It's what happens when the illusion pales in comparison to the truth. I'm seeing her for the first time. Not Ava Garden Wilder, the rags-to-riches granddaughter of Clyde Jones. Not a tragic, romantic heroine.
Just Ava.
And I am utterly in love. — Nina LaCour

Emperor, king, general, duke," he whispered to himself. "These are just labels. Climb up the family tree of any of them high enough and you'll find a commoner who dared to take a chance. — Ken Liu

The American dream of rags to riches is a dream for a reason - it is hard to achieve; were everyone to do it, it wouldn't be a dream but would rather be reality. — Robert Fulton

In A Midnight Carol Patricia Davis illuminates the dark and brilliant humanity of Charles Dickens
the man who lived a rags-to-riches life more remarkable than any of his stories. — Richard Lederer