The Poor Kid Quotes & Sayings

Know this too: Some people won't like you, and you won't like everyone. That's okay. None of that matters. What matters is meeting like-minded people who get you, accept you, and will do anything for you. Even if that means pegging some poor kid in the face with a snowball and sitting against a playground wall on a cold, snowy day. — Connor Franta

I felt like a kid standing in the world's greatest video arcade without any quarters, unable to do anything but walk around and watch the other kids play. — Ernest Cline

Nobody can ever make enough money for as many poor relatives as I've got. Somebody's got a sick kid, or somebody needs an operation, somebody ain't got this, somebody ain't got that. Or to give the kids all a car when they graduate. — Dolly Parton

I was born with an extremely negative attitude. I was the kid who wouldn't smile in Christmas photos, was a poor sport, and hated a lot of things. I eventually grew out of my negativity when I matured. — Colton Haynes

The bedroom door opened and Ginger snapped Evan's reaction shot on her cell phone. He looked like he'd been struck dumb at the sight of Willa coming toward him. She saved the photo of Evan with the intention of showing it to Willa the next time she felt unsure of his feelings for her. The poor kid looked two seconds away from throwing himself at her feet.

"Whoa."

"Hey." Willa shifted from side to side, looking uneasy under Evan's scrutiny. She pretended to adjust the bracelet Ginger lent her to avoid his eyes.

"Willa, stop."

Both sisters gaped at Evan.

"Stop what?" Willa managed.

"I can tell you're freaking out." He held out his hand to her. "Stop."

Ginger watched, fascinated, as Willa's eyes glassed over and she bit her bottom lip. Nodding, she reached out and took his hand.

"You look beautiful," he breathed. — Tessa Bailey

Millennials in the workplace have been called "orchids"2 (can't survive outside the greenhouse) and "teacups"3 (chip easily and then are ruined), but to me the most prescient metaphor for young adults sent out into the world after being overparented is "veal" - a term coined by Massachusetts educator Joe Maruszczak - meaning they're raised in controlled environments and led, metaphorically, to slaughter. None of us took a course called "how to hold your kid back," but overparenting appears to be seriously poor preparation for life in the work world. In 2014, interested — Julie Lythcott-Haims

I've personally demanded that tyrants let their people go. I've tried to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, protect the elderly and infirm, and defend the needy from the aggressively greedy. I've led a blessed life. What a kick for a kid from the projects. — Gary Ackerman

I love bowl games. I really do. I like it more than the kids do. I grew up a poor kid in western Pennsylvania, and I went to Nebraska because I saw them play in the Orange Bowl and I wanted to play in a bowl game. I cherish the memories. — Barry Alvarez

When I was a kid a long time ago, when the sun rose, I was outside on my bike. If my parents were lucky - poor parents! - I would be home before it got dark. — Larry Ellison

But poor old Dim kept looking up at the stars and planets and the Luna with his rot wide open like a kid who'd never viddied any such thing before, and he said: "What's on them, I wonder. What would be up there on things like that?" I nudged him hard, saying: "Come, gloopy bastard as thou art. Think thou not on them. There'll be life like down here most likely, with some getting knifed and others doing the knifing. — Anthony Burgess

Poor-country surf communities can be complex and, to some extent, leveling. The fisherman's kid is competing head to head with the plutocrat's gilded son. Your father can't buy you a good frontside hack. — William Finnegan

I grew up in the midst of poverty but every black kid that I knew could read and write. We have to talk about the fact that we cannot educate for critical consciousness if we have a group of people who cannot access Fanon, Cabral, or Audre Lorde because they can't read or write. How did Malcolm X radicalize his consciousness? He did it through books. If you deprive working-class and poor black people of access to reading and writing, you are making them that much farther removed from being a class that can engage in revolutionary resistance. — Bell Hooks

You hear terrible stories because there'll be a story about some terrible kid, but most of the kids I work with are terrific kids. They're poor, maybe their families are broken, so they're not coming home to a mom and dad and a nice dinner every night. But these kids are capable. — Rafe Esquith

I'd get more applause than some because I was just seventeen. If they didn't clap at the end of my act I would limp off stage and boy would they feel guilty. They would all burst into tremendous applause as they saw this poor cripple kid walking off. — Jim Dale

The word "fronting" was important to Rob. A coward who acted tough was fronting. A nerd who acted dumb was fronting. A rich kid who acted poor was fronting. Rob found the instinct very offensive, and in college he saw it all around. — Jeff Hobbs

You have broken my heart
I am a little kid,
I cannot stop crying
I hit my feet to the ground and my hands to my head
Like a fly
I cannot get up from the sticky ground
I cannot talk about you
Because it hurts
I feel the pain inside my bones
I cannot forget you
The reality has become dream and dream has become nightmare
These are my tears
They are not my sweats
I have not pissed on myself
Every drop carries pain and regret
They are all because of you,
You broke my virgin heart and poor soul,
I thought we belonged with each other
We shared dreams and wishes
We shared love and devotion
I did not know they were all lies,
If I knew you were leaving me one day, I would have loved you more than I did
Maybe it would have changed your mind
Because I still love you — M.F. Moonzajer

Hey kid. Remember when John asked you to be in charge of watering the plants outside our door?'
Eden frowns for a second, digging through his memories, and then a grin lights us his face. 'I did a pretty good job, didn't I?'
'You built that little makeshift catapult in front of our door.' I close my eyes and indulge in the memory, a temporary distraction from all the pain. 'Yeah, I remember that thing. You kept lobbing water balloons at those poor flowers. Did they have any petals when you were done? Oh man, John was so pissed.' He was even madder because Eden was only four at the time, well, how do you punish your wide-eyed baby brother. — Marie Lu

I just love kids. As a kid, I grew up in a poor country with a poor family that had nothing. I loved anyone who could come into my life, in from the outside, and give me advice that could help me succeed. I believe that there are a lot of people who came into my life that made me Dikembe Mutombo. — Dikembe Mutombo

When I was a kid I got so much help from the Church. When I was a kid, our family was so poor they couldn't afford me to go to school, so there was an American family that send the money to the church to support my school fees. — John Woo

I think everyone has some sort of connection to Gatsby as a character ... he's created himself according to his own emotions and dreams and lifted himself by his bootstraps from a poor kid in the Midwest and created this image that is The Great Gatsby and it's a truly American story in that regard. — Leonardo DiCaprio

There are so many bad influences out there. I don't care if a kid is rich or poor, if he lives in a million-dollar house or the ghetto, he is going to find some sick things on the street. And if we don't clean it up soon, we're all going to pay the price. — Warren Moon

I was always the poor kid, even though I very much tried to pretend to be the other way. Always well presented. Always really active in the school, doing fashion shows, plays, involved in every single aspect of the school. Overcompensating, I think, for the fact that I knew I wouldn't be going on the ski trip every January. — FKA Twigs

Give over, big man. She is pregnant, not made of glass. Give her a bump, I promise she won't break."

Kane grinned wickedly. "Giving her a bump is what has me worried about her in the first place."

Keela's eyes shone with wonder. "I can't wait to see what you're like when she gets here; you'll have the poor kid wrapped up in bubble wrap from day one. — L.A. Casey

Hey, manager ... Some kid must have left his glove here ... It has his name on it ... See? Right here ... Willie Mays ... He wrote his name on his glove, see? Poor kid ... He's probably been looking all over for it ... We should have a lost and found. I don't know any kid around here named Willie Mays, do you? How are we gonna get it back to him? He was pretty smart putting his name on his glove this way, though ... It's funny, I just don't remember any kid by that name ... "
"Look at your own glove."
"What?"
"Look at your own glove ... There's a name on it ... "
"Babe Ruth ... Well, I'll be! How in the world do you suppose I got her glove?! — Charles M. Schulz

16thJune, 2015 You are never going to believe what happened today. We got to Fred's house in the morning; even a little earlier than we planned. He was crying puddles, the poor fellow! His father had vanished, and he still hadn't come home. Fred reckoned that he was probably aimlessly walking around the city. We went with him to the hospital to visit his mother. The hospital looked like a dead place, all white and ugly and it stank of that Lysol/antiseptic smell. It smelled so clean, I was worried that I would fart and the stink would kill people! And you know what? The exact opposite happened! See, we went into the room where Fred's mother was being kept. Fred was really upset — Wimpy Kid

I have the most eclectic audience - I've got gay, I've got straight, black, white, rich, poor, young, old, in 45 countries. And they don't all come because I'm the Sinatra kid, though that's a big part of it. My biggest successes have come from pop songs that I write myself. — Michael Buble

My wife and I tend to overgift to our kids at Christmas. We laugh and feel foolish when a kid is so distracted with one toy that we must force them into opening the next, or when something grand goes completely unnoticed in a corner. How consumerist, right? How crassly American. How like God. We are all that overwhelmed kid, not even noticing our heartbeats, not even noticing our breathing, not even noticing that our fingertips can feel and pick things up, that pie smells like pie and that our hangnails heal and that honey-crisp apples are real and that dogs wag their tails and that awe perpetually awaits us in the sky. The real yearning, the solomonic state of mind, is caused by too much gift, by too many things to love in too short a time. Because the more we are given, the more we feel the loss as we are all made poor and sent back to our dust. — N.D. Wilson

My name is Nick Gautier and this is the story of my life. First off, get the name right. It's pronounced Go-shay not Go-tee-ay or Goat-chay (that has an extra H in it and as my mom says we're so poor we couldn't afford the extra letter). I'm not some fancy French fashion designer. I'm just a regular kid ... well as regular as someone with a stripper for a mother and a career felon for a father can be. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

No," I said. "I choose the prophecy. It will be about me."
"Why are you saying that?" she cried. "You want to be responsible for the whole world?"
It was the last thing I wanted, but I didn't say that. I knew I had to step up and claim it.
"I can't let Nico be in any more danger," I said. "I owe that much to his sister. I ... let them
both down. I'm not going to let that poor kid suffer any more. — Rick Riordan

The vast majority of the guns in the U.S. are sold to white people who live in the suburbs or the country. When we fantasize about being mugged or home invaded, what's the image of the perpetrator in our heads? Is it the freckled-face kid from down the street - or is it someone who is, if not black, at least poor? — Michael Moore

We're not going to give tax breaks to billionaires and then cut back on the needs of our elderly or poor or kids or education. We're not going to privatize Social Security - in fact, we're going to strengthen it. We're going to provide quality education for every kid in America, from preschool through college. We have to take on these corporate leaders who are selling out the American people, whose allegiance is now much more to China than it is to the United States. If we have the courage to take these people on, I think we can overwhelm George W. Bush and his friends. — Bernie Sanders

It was like Jerry McGuire. I was poor, starstruck Dorothy - minus the kid and the vagina - and Ben was Show Me the Money Jerry and he never gave me a chance to have him at hello."
"I have no clue what you just said."
He waved me off. "I'm well aware, but it was a perfect comparison that shouldn't go to waste. — Ashlan Thomas

Hey, laugh all you want, but I grew up poor in backwoods Florida, with an immigrant, single mom. I'm the only person in my family who learned to read, and that was only because of comic books at first, and then fantasy novels and an active imagination. I got addicted to them when I was a kid and read like crazy. I must have read thousands of them. So I've been reading about elves and that kind of thing for twenty plus years. I can't help it if I'm excited." "You were a geek," she said. "Well, I guess." "I bet you played Dungeons and Dragons in a friend's garage." "Well, yeah." "Nerd. — Larry Correia

Give dry bread to a rich kid and he will throw it into the dustbin, give it to the poor kid and he will remember your name for the rest of his days — Bangambiki Habyarimana

No. I told you before, I don't even remember coming through the gate. I woke up in thecemetery, my poor wing snapped, my leg broken, beaten like an orphan kid in regency England. I was a pitiful wee creature."
"Um, okay. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I was a farm kid from the plains of South Venezuela, from a very poor family. I grew up in a palm tree house with an earthen floor. — Hugo Chavez

Are you gonna kill me?" the kid asked.

Kid definitely didn't know who he was. There would be fawning.

Wait. He looked that scary?

Grinning, Evie said, "Nah. You've got nothing to worry about, squirt. Mr. Brothario is a lover, not a fighter."

Blue glared at her.

Drew flipped him off before rushing inside his house, probably to hide.

"Aw, how sweet," Evie said, settling in her seat. "I think he was trying to warn you against unleashing your dreadful wrath on sweet, innocent me."

"If the poor kid thinks you're sweet, I have to fear his home life. — Gena Showalter

Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor. — Cory Doctorow

Republicans: 'we fought the good fight' - yeah, it woulda been worth it if we could have prevented just one poor kid from getting a free inhaler. — Bill Maher

Poor kid has saved the world. That blanket was masterful. I mean, he also almost destroyed the world, but probably best not to focus on that bit. — J.K. Rowling

We don't want sympathetic liberals, we want gays to represent gays ... I represent the gay street people-the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope! They need a piece of the pie! — Harvey Milk

Out in the wide readership,his younger brother was kicking an ice bucket in the woods behind the Marriott,
his younger brother who was missing that part of the brain that allows you to make out with your pillow.
Poor kid. — David Berman

I had seen that once before, bleeding water. A little baby I worked on as a resident in training. That poor kid had been shot as well - his father had blasted away the top of his head with a shotgun - and we couldn't begin to stop the bloodletting in that case. "Looking pretty thin down here," I hollered when the stuff coming out his wounds was no more than pink salt water. That baby's heart stopped, started, stopped and started a dozen times before it finally gave up the ghost and we pronounced him. I could have read a newspaper through the watery stuff coming out his veins by then. — Edison McDaniels

Imagine your kid is running into the street and you have to sprint after her in bare feet," Eric told me when I picked up my training with him after my time with Ken. "You'll automatically lock into perfect form
you'll be up on your forefeet, with your back erect, head steady, arms high, elbows driving, and feet touching down quickly on the forefoot and kicking back toward your butt."
You can't run uphill powerfully with poor biomechanics," Eric explained. — Christopher McDougall

Emma, you and your poetry, me and my acting--what are we trying to do? We can't top this city. We poor would-be artists can't compete with or improve on the rich density of human experience on any random, average, slow summer night in New York--who are we trying to kid? In the overheard conversation in the elevator, in the five minutes of talk the panhandler gives you before hitting you for the handout, in the brief give-and-take when you are going out and the cleaning lady is coming in--there are the real stories, incredible, heartbreaking and ridiculous, there are the command performances, the Great American Novels but forever unwritten, untoppable, and so beautifully unaware. — Wilton Barnhardt

Oh, when I was a kid in show business I was poor. I used to go to orgies to eat the grapes. — Rodney Dangerfield

I realized I might have intimated the poor kid, — Michelle Hughes

Thomas hated the people who'd taken this poor, innocent kid form his family. He hated them with a passion he didn't know a human could feel. He wanted them dead, tortured, even. He wanted Chuck to be happy. But happiness had been ripped form their lives. Love had been ripped from their lives. — James Dashner

The traditional story of economists has been to say education explains what the returns are to school. I say, 'Okay, that's fine, but what explains the education? How much is just a matter of my giving you a poor kid versus a rich kid?' — James Heckman

Throughout most of my life, I've tried to downplay my Chinese heritage because I wanted so much to be an American. I was the only Asian kid in my elementary school, and I longed to be like everyone else. I insisted on American food; I was embarrassed by my mother's poor English. — Tess Gerritsen

They didn't beat me up too bad. I could tell they didn't want to put me in the hospital or anything. Mostly they just wanted to remind me that I was a traitor. And they wanted to steal my candy and the money. It wasn't much. Maybe ten bucks in coins and dollar bills. But that money, and the idea of giving it to poor people, had made me feel pretty good about myself. I was a poor kid raising money for other poor people. It made me feel almost honorable. But I just felt stupid and naive after those guys took off. — Sherman Alexie

When I was a kid in Houston, we were so poor we couldn't afford the last 2 letters, so we called ourselves po'. — George Foreman

A white college student from a private college goes into a poor neighborhood and volunteers four hours a week and that's considered exemplary. [Whereas] a poor kid who lives in that community and takes care of all the kids in that neighborhood four hours every day is not seen as a volunteer. — Patricia Hill Collins

A very poor kid came up to me after a talk and said 'I want to go blow up a factory.' I asked how old he was and he said 17. I said 'have you ever had sex?' He said 'no.' I said 'just remember if you get caught you aren't going to have sex for twenty years at least.' That's not saying that one person having sex is worth the salmon. I'm not saying it's a reason not to act, I'm saying don't be stupid. — Derrick Jensen

When the TV version of Annie came on, I was drawn to it. It was the struggle of this poor kid in this environment and how her life changed. It immediately resonated. — Jay-Z

I'm a poor kid from the streets. What I've been able to achieve has really just been through hard work and not letting anyone tell me that I couldn't do something. I always try to encourage people to just pursue your dreams. — Dave Bautista

Of course, not every kid has the same risk of becoming a victim. A large number of those gun deaths occur in poor neighborhoods. — Elizabeth Warren

Andy had been a good friend, and a good human being. Someone who was loyal, and upbeat, and funny. You think if you're not in touch with someone, everything is probably okay with them. Life just ticks along. They do the same things as you. They grow up. They meet a girl. Maybe they get married. They progress in their work. Perhaps they get into IT, or move abroad, or have a kid. Maybe they get rich, maybe they stay poor. But you never, ever think, that maybe they're dead. — Danny Wallace

Teachers are everything. I mean, you're a poor kid from the ghetto, your parents are busy working 24/7, working like a Mexican. — John Leguizamo

I went to work in a woman's home in Los Angeles as a mother's helper. I worked there about two years. Went to school with all rich kids. I was the only poor kid in the school, and I was already insecure. But my voice saved me because I sang in school, and I was real popular because of my voice. — Georgia Holt

Rich kid," Shiva yelled, "you don't know one damn thing! What purpose, man? What thing in the whole sister-sleeping world got reason, yara? For what reason you're rich and I'm poor? Where's the reason in starving, man? God knows how many millions of damn fools living in this country, man, and you think there's a purpose! Man, I'll tell you
you got to get what you can, do what you can with it, and then you got to die. That's reason, rich boy. Everything else is only mother-sleeping wind! — Salman Rushdie

When I was a kid I was not a good student. I went to the University of Colarado, my grades were poor. I was asked to leave after a year. What I really wanted to do was to be an artist. — Robert Redford

My mother, we were a very poor family. When I was a kid, we would be in our little room, and there would be a knock on the door almost every night with a hobo begging for food. Even though we didn't even have enough to eat, my mother always found something to give them. — Kirk Douglas

The way to beat Luke," he said. "If I'm right, it's the only way you'll stand a chance." I took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm listening." Nico glanced inside my room. His eyebrows furrowed. "Is that ... is that blue birthday cake?" He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful. I wondered if the poor kid had ever had a birthday party, or if he'd ever even been invited to one. :Come inside for cake and ice cream," I said. "It sounds like we've got a lot to talk about. — Rick Riordan

There was this one show in Green Bay when this kid was booing us loud and aggressively. Then The Ramones came on and he was booing them too. We went over to White Zombie's tour manager and said, 'This guy was booing us and that's one thing, but now he's booing The Ramones, and if you boo The Ramones you're booing rock 'n' roll.' So the tour manager went and plucked this kid out of the audience and kicked him out of the show for booing The Ramones. The poor kid had to wait in the cold without his jacket on and wait for his mommy to come and get him, all because he didn't realize what he was doing. Monte: — Monte A. Melnick

One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That's the American ideal. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank, they don't like to think of themselves as poor. It's embarrassing. When you're a kid, even in the projects, one kid will mercilessly snap on another kid over minor material differences, even though by the American standard, they're both broke as shit. — Jay-Z

My dad left when I was a little boy and I grew up with my mother's family. There were foundations in the U.S. where Jewish people got together and sent money to Cuba, so we got some of that. We were a poor family, but I was always a happy kid. — William Levy

We approach people the same way we approach our cars. We take the poor kid to a doctor and ask, What's wrong with him, how much will it cost, and when can I pick him up? — James Hillman

Jack stares at me blankly. 'A what?' he asks.

I choke back the laugh. 'A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don't seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.'

'What are you talking about?' Jack asks, 'A boy? She's just a kid.'

I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. 'She's seventeen. She's not a kid anymore.'

Jack looks like he's about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. 'If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I'm going to kill him,' he says.

Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn't require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London. — Sarah Alderson