Homeless Quotes & Sayings

Hungry for love, He looks at you. Thirsty for kindness, He begs of you. Naked for loyalty, He hopes in you. Homeless for shelter in your heart, He asks of you. Will you be that one to Him? — Mother Teresa

I met a woman working 30 hours a week, trying to make ends meet, three children. And she slept the night before I met her in her car because she's homeless. We can do better. We can build a nation of shared prosperity. — Thomas Perez

Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world. — Virginia Woolf

Up to this point, it was rare for the mad to be distinguished from the poor, the homeless, the indigent, beggars, vagabonds, petty criminals and others who were unable to fit into society or take care of themselves. It was rare, too, that they were locked up. — Mike Jay

Sadism dominates the culture. It runs like an electric current through reality television and trash-talk programs, is at the core of pornography, and fuels the compliant, corporate collective. Corporatism is about crushing the capacity for moral choice and diminishing the individual to force him or her into an ostensibly harmonious collective. This hypermasculinity has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our lack of compassion for our homeless, our poor, the mentally ill, the unemployed, and the sick ... We accept the system handed to us and seek to find a comfortable place within it. We retreat into the narrow, confined ghettos created for us and shut our eyes to the deadly superstructure of the corporate state. — Chris Hedges

I could so totally rock the homeless scene if I didn't have a baby growing inside me. — Alisa Mullen

The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered. — Thomas Jefferson

No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. 7 Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. — Anonymous

America is also the nameless foreigner, the homeless refugee, the hungry boy begging for a job and the black body dangling on a tree. America is the illiterate immigrant who is ashamed that the world of books and intellectual opportunities are closed to him. We are all that nameless foreigner, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy, that illiterate immigrant and that lynched black body. All of us, from the first Adams to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate-We are America! — Carlos Bulosan

I felt the seed of something strong sprout something real in me and felt a surge. I'd be in the woods, homeless, walking north with my fellow self-exiled desert pilgrims. I'd be a dropout.
I had nothing left to lose. — Aspen Matis

Narcissism is as profitable to a model as scruffiness is to a homeless person. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Mr. Gunt, Mr. Neal here is a street survivor. We at the airline are honoring the homeless this year, and it was our airline's privilege and delight to offer him the one remaining business-class seat as a token of our faith in the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. With the full authority of the EU air-system code behind me, I order you back to 67E. — Douglas Coupland

Indeed, there are recurrent hints in the Bible that the Israelites had feelings of guilt about taking the Canaanites' land,147 a curious adumbration of Israeli twinges about homeless Palestinian Arabs in the late twentieth century. The Israelites, however, hid any remorse in the belief that the conquest was a pious act: it is 'because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you'. — Paul Johnson

By the way, I've been homeless for the past two years. Some of you may think, Aw, how sad. Others may think, Ha, ha, loser! But if you saw me on the street, ninety-nine percent of you would walk right past like I'm invisible. You'd pray, Don't let him ask me for money. — Rick Riordan

It could be anything, give a homeless guy a sandwich, help an old lady across the street like anything to make this world a better place. If everybody just did one good thing for another person like a selfless good deed just think about how much a better place this would be. — Frank Iero

He had awoken too late for happiness, but not for strength, and could feel an austere joy, as of a warrior who is homeless but stands fully armed. — E. M. Forster

The only thing I had was Laika, the dog, whose homeless soul was howling through the cosmos. And my brother, the Minotaur. — Georgi Gospodinov

When homeless people go camping, how do they know? — Dana Gould

The place resembled a new model prison, or one that had achieved a provisional utopia after principled revolt, or maybe a homeless shelter for people with liberal arts degrees. The cages brought to mind those labs with their death-fuming vents near my college studio. These kids were part of some great experiment. It was maybe the same one in which I'd once been a subject. Unlike me, though, or the guinea pigs and hares, they were happy, or seemed happy, or were blogging about how they seemed happy. — Sam Lipsyte

The homeless embodied the final stage in a decline your life could have tended toward. You did not take them for victims, but for authors of their own lives. — Edouard Leve

I always feel a certain sense of reverence in libraries, even small city ones that smell like homeless internet users. — Ken Jennings

When I was really young. My sister and I would create different characters with our Barbie dolls - I'd be the crazy diva Barbie and she'd be the homeless Barbie. — Jordana Brewster

Nezhdanov's heart began to beat violently and he lowered his eyes involuntarily. This girl, who had fallen in love with a homeless wretch like him, who trusted him, who was ready to follow him, to go with him towards one and the same goal - this wonderful girl - Marianna - at that moment was, for Nezhdanov, the embodiment of everything good and just on earth; the embodiment of that love, that of a family, sister or wife, which he had not experienced; the embodiment of homeland, happiness, struggle and freedom. — Ivan Turgenev

I told myself when I was broke and homeless that my biggest goal was just to have a house. That goal was achieved. I'm just really, really lucky. — Rosa Salazar

Mario you are a great chef but you look like a homeless James Gandolfini. — Jim Norton

People have suggested that perhaps we are too affluent to be telling this story, which is amazing to me because then I wonder what story I am allowed to tell. Having been working with the homeless for the past years, I noticed lots of things about them, but one thing I really noticed was that they were probably too busy just getting though the day to make a film about themselves. — Paul Bettany

Whether I'm feeding the homeless, stopping by a high school to chat with teens, visiting a prison or local jail, I think that the greatest service you can give is yourself. To be able to help someone who is not in a position to help themselves or possibly ever repay you. — Raheem Devaughn

If sometimes our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not that God didn't care for them, but because you and I didn't give, were not an instrument of love in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing; because we did not recognize him, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise, in the hungry man, in the lonely man, in the homeless child, and seeking for shelter. — Mother Teresa

I watched the rows and rows of chappals left by devotees outside the Hindu temple and wondered if the homeless boys who sometimes steal our chickens ever steal them, and if they do, are they punished, and if so by whom? — Renita D'Silva

Of course money buys happiness. You ever seen a homeless person skip? The answer to that riddle's no. They're not allowed. — Daniel Tosh

Sometimes it's moments like that, real complicated moments, absorbing moments, that make you realize that even hard times have things in them that make you feel alive. And then there's music, and girls, and drugs, and homeless people who've read Pauline Kael, and wah-wah pedals, and English potato chip flavors, and I haven't even read Martin Chuzzlewit yet ... There's plenty out there. — Nick Hornby

All these people talking about morality should just take a walk downtown. They don't want to go downtown because instantly they see homeless people and they don't want to. — Neil Young

Maketa Groves has a strong, bright lyric gift. Her poems come out of music and are full of music. They bring us the sounds of the streets and the sounds of nature, and make us see once again that they are parts of the same song. She celebrates American lives as they are lived today: the mother scrubbing her kitchen floor at midnight, the drag-queens in the Tenderloin, the homeless woman knitting in the courtyard. This is poetry that relentlessly shows us the beauty in the world, with all its struggles and complexity, and demands that we go out to meet it with open hearts. — Diane Di Prima

What I prized most was freedom, freedom to do my work, to give myself spontaneously and not out of duty or by command. I could not submit to such demands; rather would I choose the path of a homeless wanderer; yes, even go without love. — Emma Goldman

Why should the wealth of the country be stored in banks and elevators while the idle workman wanders homeless about the streets and the idle loafers who hoard the gold only to spend it in riotous living are rolling about in fine carriages from which they look out on peaceful meetings and call them riots? — Erik Larson

Another day, another dollar, another war, another tower Went up where the homeless had their home. — Jewel

After a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, the federal government has a profound obligation to help those in need, .. Right now, the victims of Hurricane Katrina need our help. Entire communities have been destroyed. Families have been torn apart. Many are still missing. Tens of thousands remain homeless. As the recovery proceeds, we in the Senate pledge to do everything in our power to help rebuild the shattered lives across the Gulf Coast. — Dianne Feinstein

The God who impoverished himself is also the God of abundance, and somehow, perhaps at times nonsensically, Christians are called to live out of an ethic not of scarcity but of abundance - an abundance that extends both to the homeless neighbor and to the artist neighbor. . . — Lauren Winner

I'm homeless. I've taken to the belief that home is not where we lay our heads comfortably some nights, or where we entertain visiting friends. It's not where love is unconditional.
When I look up and realize I haven't run away in a long time, I'll know I'm home. — Darnell Lamont Walker

Socialism is not about big concepts and heavy theory. Socialism is about decent shelter for those who are homeless. It is about water for those who have no safe drinking water. It is about health care, it is about a life of dignity for the old. It is about overcoming the huge divide between urban and rural areas. It is about a decent education for all our people. Socialism is about rolling back the tyranny of the market. As long as the economy is dominated by an unelected, privileged few, the case for socialism will exist. — Chris Hani

From paying off friends' tax bills to rescuing stray dogs and stuffing £20 notes into the hands of homeless people, I can't get rid of my money fast enough. — Julie Burchill

The homes
I've built
in people
are falling
apart
and I'm
afraid
of being
homeless. — Ameena Karaja

Dave: 'Will you ever be happy Echo?'
Echo: 'I don't know I haven't tried it yet.'
Dave: 'Let's give it a shot together.'
Echo: 'Let's spread fire instead. — Jim Goldberg

An elderly black man with gray hair said, "Every bottle should come with a warning: 'This bottle may cause you to lose your job. This bottle may cause you to get a divorce. This bottle may cause you to become homeless. — Akhil Sharma

Homeless people's dogs are more knowledgeable than dogs in Beverly Hills. Why? Because they explore, they move forward, they go through the ups and downs in life. A dog in a wealthy environment, there is no downs except what he lives. — Cesar Millan

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. — Joe Budden

No one is asking what happened to all the homeless. No one cares, because it's easier to get on the subway and not be accosted. — Richard Linklater

An agent friend of mine who will remain nameless said you can't make a romance about homeless people; nobody wants to see them kiss. And I thought, what a repulsive, repugnant, extraordinary thing to say. I had to think about the fact that the world is probably full of other people who feel like that. The very idea that we spend time trying to humanize humans is extraordinary to me. — Paul Bettany

At last! She wishes to speak, folks! It'll all be cleared up now! A homeless man cheers — Rachel A. Marks

There's no reason someone who has fought for their country should be homeless or jobless. — Chris Kyle

I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed. — Gustav Mahler

How in the world had Bonnie managed to get Madeline's ex-husband out of bed at that time of morning to go to work in a homeless shelter? Nathan wouldn't get up before eight a.m. in the ten years they'd been together. Bonnie must give him organic blow jobs. "Abigail — Liane Moriarty

On this Very Street in Belgrade
Your mother carried you
Out of the smoking ruins of a building
And set you down on this sidewalk
Like a doll bundled in burnt rags,
Where you now stood years later
Talking to a homeless dog,
Half-hidden behind a parked car,
His eyes brimming with hope
As he inched forward, ready for the worst. — Charles Simic

I grew up homeless, you know, lived in and out of U-Haul trucks and, you know, apartment houses, friends. — Donald Driver

I'm giving you my life to prove to myself I can, I really can love somebody. Even when I'm not getting paid, I can give love and happiness and charm. You see, I can handle the baby food and the not talking and being homeless and invisible, but I have to know that I can love somebody. Completely and totally, permanently and without hope of reward, just as an act of will, I will love somebody. — Chuck Palahniuk

We better get over to Beckett's if you want to see how my day goes - before his crowd gets too raunchy." Blake stood up and held out his hand.
"It's eight thirty in the morning. How raunchy could they be?"
Livia wondered what, exactly, Beckett did for a living. Her question was soon answered. Everything bad. — Debra Anastasia

Many feel that sitting at a screen sweating over the design of handrail details for the next cute downtown boutique hotel just doesn't make sense when more than 150,000 people have lost their lives, more than five million people have been made homeless and whole towns have been swept away. — Cameron Sinclair

People are not homeless if they're sleeping in the streets of their own hometowns. — Dan Quayle

The face that greeted me, however, was far from welcoming, it was a miniature stick insect of a woman with wiry white hair and enormous glasses that emphasized her heavily wrinkled face. She blinked twice and looked me up and down. By the look on her face, she wasn't that impressed with what she saw. "Who is it, Ethel?"
She responded, "It's some homeless woman. She looks like she needs money and a good wash."
And I thought I'd already reached the lowest point of my day. — Suzanne Kelman

The greatest spiritual leaders in history have all preached love for others as the basis for all happiness, and never did they accompany such mandates with a list of unlovable actions or deeds. They never said, love everybody except for the gays. Love everybody except for the homeless. Love everybody except for the drug users. Love everybody except for the gang members, or those covered in ink, or the spouse abusers. They didn't tell us it was okay to love everybody with the exception of the "trailer trash," those living in poverty, or the illegal immigrants. They didn't tell us it was okay to love everybody except for our ex-lovers, our lovers' ex lovers, or our ex-lovers' lovers. The mandate was pretty damn clear, wasn't it?
Love others.
Period. — Dan Pearce

I did a gig in the U.S. once for the homeless. I said 'It's nice to see so many bums on seats.' — Jimmy Carr

Clanless, lawless, homeless is he who is in love with civil war, that brutal ferocious thing. — Homer

Wow. Snubbed by a homeless guy. My night was getting better and better — Jenn Bennett

They [homeless people] are constructed ideologically to be oppressed to the level of losing their humanity. It is not by chance it is a design. — Bruno De Oliveira

I've never seen anyone handling pans in the streets of New York, and if I did I doubt I'd give them money, unless I needed a pan. I do give money to homeless people, whether they ask or no. — Hamish Linklater

Mai grins at Mycroft. 'You know that's slightly ridiculous, don't you?'
He smiled. 'Why?'
'Because. . . because you're teenagers.' Mai's expression says it should be obvious. 'Mycroft, this isn't like figuring out who spray-painted some guy's car. This is murder.'
'The principles are the same' he insists.
'But you're both minors. And you have no access to police information, no experience, no forensics lab, no authority. . . '
'Mai, are you trying to bring me down or something?'
Gus, who usually only gets emotive about things like soccer, suddenly leans forward. 'I think you should do it.' He glances at me and Mycroft in turn. 'This homeless guy, it's not like his death is going to be a major priority, is it? The police won't bend over backwards to bring his killer to justice or anything. He was a derelict with no family. So you two are the only ones who even care. — Ellie Marney

He who does not depend on anything, who is pure and active, who does not care whether good comes or evil, and never becomes miserable, who has given up all efforts for himself; who is the same in praise or in blame, with a silent, thoughtful mind, blessed with what little comes in his way, homeless, for the whole world is his home, and who is steady in his ideas, such a one is My beloved Bhakta." Such alone become Yogis. — Swami Vivekananda

Some of you may feel that if you don't do something soon to change your life, you will be left by the roadside, alone, homeless and in despair. But is the despair not there as you reach and grapple to create or manifest your desires through your own effort and will? What happens if or when those things appear in your life? Joy? Peace? Or a temporary sense of relief?

What if it is relief from the wanting you have been craving for so long, not the outcome, but the relief from the constant wanting. — Kelly Martin

God is present in the hungry, the homeless, the sick, and the imprisoned, as Jesus claimed in Matthew 25, and we serve God when we serve them. — Philip Yancey

What do you have there?"
Mouse perked up at her interest. "I'm making ski masks to have on hand for bank robberies. Last night I finished the fingerless mermaid gloves for Eve. She likes her fingers free for gunplay."
Mouse's needles clicked together in a peaceful rhythm. — Debra Anastasia

Most families are destroyed from the inside, because they allow themselves to be conquered by others from the outside. — Carlton Young

As massive numbers of homeless, hungry, unemployed, drug-addicted, illiterate, and mentally ill people vanish behind its walls, the social problems of extreme poverty, homelessness, hunger, unemployment, drug addiction, illiteracy, and mental illness become more ignorable, too. — Maya Schenwar

It's too soon, too fast. We don't even know each other."
"Says who?" Ethan demanded. "Who decides how long it should take? Who makes the rules?"
Erica shrugged because she really didn't know it just seemed like common sense.
He put his index finger under her chin and swept his thumb just under her lower lip. "I do know you." He whispered. "I know you love chocolate and hate roses. I know you are kind and compassionate and generous. I know you feed the homeless and the stray cat that lives behind your apartment. I know you are a hopeless romantic. You are fiercely loyal." His eyes took on a mischievous glint. "I know you are ticklish; I know what makes you moan; I know what makes you squirm." He kissed her softly. "I know when I am with you I don't want to be anywhere else." He kissed her again and this time she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Their tongues tangled in a duel that left her breathless. — Melissa Hale

For some reason, which I believe I can guess, the churches/mosques want control of people when or while they are the most vulnerable or suggestible. If they can't get them in school, then they get them when they are hungry, or frightened, or ill, or homeless, or unemployed. Same difference. Here's your gruel, and here's a tract. — Christopher Hitchens

Change comes, when every person is adequately benefited.
We keep hearing about "change." Change will never come to all of society. Change can only come when the market system adequately provide all of the needs for all people. Millions are living in poverty in the United States and throughout the world, due to "change" passed them by, are struggling: Among them are high unemployment, the mentally challenged, poor education, many of them are homeless and hungry, sick and tired; such individuals, look for ways to move beyond their prison walls that hold them back from moving forward: Through the corridors of their prison, they observe the wealthy getting wealthier. They see the market system passing them at a fast rate of speed. Hope has long left the majority of them. There is a price that must be paid for the sins of those who have built these prisons. — Ellen J. Barrier

the happiness of every artist fits into my palm" says the homeless with no arms "when i had my hands i wrote beautiful pieces of poetry the poems were nesting under my nails i just had to snap with my fingers and rhymes were born" there — Zoltan Komor

turned her head away from the other woman to avoid showing her smile. "If people were sensible, the wedding venue would never be rented out, which means we'd be homeless and living on the streets." "Love doesn't — Penelope Sotheby

When it comes to happiness, our soul is like a colander, a tire with a nail in it, our grandfather's memory. It feels like there is a homeless person inside of us, wandering around pushing a shopping cart. — John Eldredge

Sniffing glue is a homeless nonbeliever's prayer. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

If Stuart is a freak ... it is because he has had the superhuman strength not to be defeated by this isolation. It is because he has had the almost unbelievable social adroitness to be able to fit in smoothly with an educated, soft-skinned person like myself and not make me frightened half to death. If Stuart's a freak, I salute freaks. — Alexander Masters

Too bad!' the feisty poet responded.
'Yes, too bad!' the stranger agreed, his eye flashing, and went on: 'But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order on earth?'
'Man governs it himself' Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this admittedly none-too-clear question.
'Pardon me,' the stranger responded gently, 'but in order to govern, one needs, after all, to have a precise plan for a certain, at least somewhat decent, length of time. Allow me to ask you, then, how can man govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity of making a plan for at least some ridiculously short period -well, say, a thousand years- but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow? — Mikhail Bulgakov

He gripped the edge of the desk. "I've done my best to make sure my brothers have no blood on their hands," he said with menacing quiet. "I'm going to hell for all three of us." Beckett said defiantly. — Debra Anastasia

Many foster children have had difficulty making the transition to independent living. Several are homeless, become single parents, commit crimes, or live in poverty. They are also frequent targets of crime. — Charles Bass

If you walk five blocks north from the wholefoods in Berkeley along Telegraph Avenue and then turn right at Dwight way, you'll soon come to a trash-strewn patch of grass and trees dotted with the tattered camps of a few homeless people. — Michael Pollan

As a child psychiatrist, I knew too much about the statistics of foster care - less than one percent graduate college with a bachelor's degree, more than fifty percent of foster kids end up homeless after reaching eighteen, and most are dead by twenty-six. — Penny Reid

A very bouncy Kyle woke Livia at some ridiculous o'clock on Friday morning.
"Wakey-wakey, you sloppy, old whore. It's time to do you up. You're going out tonight, so you don't get to dress in nursing home casual." Kyle ripped off Livia's covers. — Debra Anastasia

You can spend the money on new housing for poor people and the homeless, or you can spend it on a football stadium or a golf course. — Jello Biafra

We push and shove and wet whales all day, then walk home through town past homeless men curled up on benches - washed up like whales on the curbsides. Pulled outside by the moon and struggling for air among the sewers. They're suffocating too, but there's no town assembly line of food. No palpable urgency, no airlifting plane. — Marina Keegan

I teach a Bible study for homeless guys in downtown Atlanta every week. Been doing it for years. That's the guys I'd rather go talk to. I'd rather take my act outside the church. — Jeff Foxworthy

To a homeless man, home is literally where the heart is. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

People give me money and I don't know why, my real collection plate is an empty cup held by a homeless guy. — Bo Burnham

If you ever wanna be motivated, go try and be homeless for a day and that will just light a fire under your butt like none other. — Ronda Rousey

God wants you to be truthful and humble to yourself and others. He made you good and industrious, but you can't benefit from it if you always stumble on pride. — Stevan V. Nikolic

I'd been in Sacramento a day and already noticed the pervasiveness of its homeless problem. The city seemed like California without the masks or pretense: a place where dreams were occasionally made but mostly torn apart. — Tom Bissell

The only way you can ever accuse a Conservative of hypocrisy is if they walk past a homeless person without kicking him in the face. — Jeremy Hardy

[On her father, Ronald Reagan:] How do you argue with someone who states that the people who are sleeping on the grates of the streets of America 'are homeless by choice'? — Patti Davis

In truth, the cinema as a delivery system obviously has its days numbered. And that's not a bad thing. When you can buy any book in the world on your iPad, or off Amazon, you don't go the public library. The public library becomes about homeless gentlemen sleeping in chairs. — William Monahan

Churches won't work with you, though, just out of the goodness of their hearts. They'll talk a good game-a sermon on Sunday, maybe, or a special offering for the homeless. But if push comes to show, they won't really move unless you can show them how it'll help them pay their heating bill. — Barack Obama

A homeless man once told me that dancing to rap music is the cultural equivalent of masturbating, and I'd sort of fell the same way about playing John Madden Football immediately after filing my income tax: It's fun, but - somehow - vaguely pathetic. — Chuck Klosterman

An Irishman will always soften bad news, so that a major coronary is no more than 'a bad turn' and a near hurricane that leaves thousands homeless is 'good drying weather'. — Hugh Leonard