Paid Dues Quotes & Sayings

I really have paid my dues. When I get to stay in fancy hotel suites these days, I remind myself of that. — Rita Ora

Worry is interest paid before it's due. — Zig Ziglar

When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail. — John Carpenter

Whatever luck I had, I made. I was never a natural athlete, but I paid my dues in sweat and concentration and took the time necessary to learn karate and become world champion. — Chuck Norris

I'm the weird poet who has paid her dues in the experimental world for 30 or 40 years. — Eileen Myles

You can't wait around for destiny to give you what you think you deserve, you have to earn it, even if you think you've paid your dues. — Slash

I was in New York for a little while, doing some really bad theater. I did some great stuff, too, but there were Saturday morning theater performances in one-third-filled church basements. So, I paid my dues. — Silas Weir Mitchell

I knew now what my earlier passion for Harry had hidden from me. That although I had bedded him as a free woman I was as bound as if I were the slave. For it was not a free choice. I had wanted him because he was the Squire, not for himself ... And it was no free choice, because I could not choose to say "No." My safety and security on the land meant I had to keep my special, costly hold on its owner. I paid him rent as surely as the tenants who came to my round rent table with their coins tied up in a scrap of cloth. When I lay on my back, or strode round the room threatening him with every imaginable, ridiculous torment, I was paying my dues. And the knowledge galled me. — Philippa Gregory

In this business, if you take too long, the landscape changes. So the opportunities that were there when I decided to take a break weren't there when I came back. It's like, 'Wait a second - what happened here?' It was a real learning experience. I've paid my dues, I will tell you that. — Chris O'Donnell

Over the years, I was never really driven to become a solo artist, but I was curious to find out who I was as an individual creative person. It's taken some time, but now I feel I've truly paid my dues. I guess I'm at a point now where I'm more comfortable in my own skin. — Annie Lennox

I've paid my dues in the classical trenches. — Laila Robins

In life, if you are refused membership to a club, you get a refund check for dues paid; what happens to your tithes if Jesus denies you entry to God's Paradise? Mal. 3:10. — Felix Wantang

Money was a problem. Money was always a problem no matter how many bones he crushed or how much blood he let or dues he paid. The fucking rent was always due. — Laird Barron

Your dues don't have to be paid all at once, but they do have to be paid in full. — Bryan Way

When you are harried, browbeaten, cajoled, bullied, pursued, threatened, bribed and surveyed by the state and its agencies, you have little inclination left over for obedience: least of all obedience to what one judge called the unenforceable. You have already paid your dues to society. Society can now look after itself. In the small sphere left to you, you will do exactly what you please, without regard to anyone else. — Theodore Dalrymple

I haven't had to struggle very much. I haven't paid my dues. I think I have been lucky. — Colin Firth

Craigslist is about authenticity. Craig has paid his dues, and people respect him. — Howard Rheingold

When I cook, I generally stick with what I know, what I'm comfortable with, and what I feel I've paid my dues learning, and am good at. — Anthony Bourdain

I was a prodigy who learned how difficult writing was only after getting published. I paid my dues later. — David Quammen

People talk about overnight successes, and ultimately, there's a certain amount of, you want to call it luck or fortune or good fortune, or whatever, but when your moment arrives, you have to have been at a point where you paid your dues, or done your 10,000 hours or have the requisite talent or whatever. — Damon Lindelof

All that is due to us will be paid, although not perhaps by those to whom we have lent. — Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

I remember with strong feelings the families who joined our movement and paid dues long before there was any hope of winning contracts. Sometimes, fathers and mothers would take money out of their meager food budgets just because they believed that farm workers could and must build their own union. I remember thinking then that with spirit like that ... we had to win. No force on earth could stop us. — Cesar Chavez

I won't say, 'I have two degrees; I shouldn't be getting your latte.' Because I paid my dues when I got to the table, I actually had something to say. — Dana Fox

Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money is this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party. — Michael Barone

I may not be a trained actor, but I've paid my dues. And I mean that literally. I am a fully dues-paid member of SAG/AFTRA. As a political figure, I've been called a 'card carrying' member of numerous groups that I'm not a member of - and now I'm being called a non-actor when I am literally a card-carrying member of the union for actors. — Donna Brazile

You have to have lived some life. You've got to have paid some dues. — Richard Pryor

Has he paid his dues? Is he black enough? ... John Lewis and I were out there marching and organizing sit-ins back in the '60s so that his children and my children would not have to do it ... We would have been failures if had to do the same things we did. — Jim Clyburn

Lord knows I've paid my dues getting through, tangled up in blue. — Bob Dylan

People think that I reached the top overnight; well, it took me fourteen years. I was twenty-nine before I really made it. I've had my jaws and hands broken. One arm is out of place. I've paid my dues in this business. — Larry Holmes

O'Reilly," he murmured. "He'd be fuckin' crazy not to want you there. Every day. Every night."
Against my arm, his heart thumped.
"He'd be stupid not to want to wake up to your wicked green eyes. Those eyes that make him feel like he's paid his dues. Like he's finally finished with living off God's fucking redemption crumbs. — Mel Bossa

This is my life, I thought ... I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil; I have been the apprentice, paid my dues, and have just become master of my ship. But when I look down, why do I see the ancient, tarred, mud-stained slippers that I buried at the start of the journey still stuck to my feet? — Abraham Verghese

I'm a New Yorker; I've paid my dues. — Zoe Kravitz

I did my time for the rape. I paid my money to Las Vegas. I paid my dues. — Mike Tyson

I think I've paid my dues. I've really put in a lot of time on set. — Victoria Pratt

I paid my dues at drama school and worked backstage in every Theatre in London. — Richard O'Brien

If I hadn't had the talent, the networks wouldn't have televised my fights. No one has made me; I made myself. I paid my dues. — Sugar Ray Leonard

And whether or not we had now paid our dues, he was my blessing, and I was his ... — Anne Fortier

I've only half-admitted I'm a professional. I know I am, I've paid my dues, but one of the things I could do better when I'm acting is to really be rigorous and to think I know how to do it. To use my brain. — Emily Mortimer

All authors go to heaven; we have paid our dues on earth by choosing to the hellish career of writing — Carl Henegan

I really appreciate an actor who has paid their dues and who has learned hard knocks and has been rewarded in the end. I don't understand young actors who get off the turnip truck and land in Hollywood and get a great job. They do not realize how fortunate they are. — Enrico Colantoni

I've paid my dues. I've earned your votes. Send me. — Jesse Jackson

Johnnie Cochran hasn't spent 20 years serving people in low-income, minority neighborhoods, ridding them of gangs and narcotics. I have. He hasn't been shot at and punched. I have. I've paid my dues to be able to say I'm not a racist. — Mark Fuhrman

I don't understand this phrase 'I've paid my dues.' We didn't have any money and lived on peanut butter and jelly, and I loved it. I don't regret any of it. We never expected to make it this far, but we worked hard to get here. — Ronnie Van Zant

Back when I was a devout Pharisee, I scowled at those who talked about grace, assuming they wanted both salvation and permission to do whatever they pleased. And when I came to discover grace as a biblical concept, it frightened me at first. The old idea of being saved by works has its benefits. It's a system where God owes you. You've been helping him out with all your good deeds. He can't very well put you through difficulty, since you're a taxpayer. You've paid your dues, you have your rights. But the beyond-belief teaching of grace is that we get what we can never pay for and more, including joy and hope and the desire to please him. I like living by God's grace a lot better than relying on my own efforts. — Phil Callaway

Actors and writers need to come back to the theater because it's a place where you can learn. You have to pay your dues, and people who haven't paid their dues in the theater, I think, have a hard time creating a whole career. — Joanne Woodward

I paid my dues. I have crawled to gigs. I have served people coffee. I worked hard selling all these records out the back of my car. Girl, I'm ready to sell one the real way now. — Valerie June

People say, You paid your dues, but I never paid any dues. It's always been a great trip. — Richard Donner

Just know that I was once considered just a dreamer ... Then I paid my dues and turned so many doubters to believers ... — Big K.R.I.T.

Well, I thought, last night I paid my dues. I faced death. Now I can stay. — Mark Vonnegut