Johnny Van Zant Quotes

We didn't have much money. My whole extended family used to help us, and buy us books and food. It was hard, and there were things I didn't want to talk about. But at the end I was a happy girl.

My childhood was rough, we were poor and my parents were alcoholics, but nobody was mean. I knew I was loved. We were on welfare, but I never felt abandoned or unloved.

Mama tried to save us from the streets, but the streets were too strong.

My mom raised us three boys by herself on welfare. It's not worse than anybody else's life.

When I started out, I struggled, and I was broke a lot. But I'm glad I struggled, and I'm glad I was broke a lot.

My life is fair game for anybody. I spent an unhappy, penniless childhood in Brooklyn. I had to slug my way up in a town called Hollywood where people love to trample you to death. I don't relax because I don't know how. I don't want to know how. Life is too short to relax.

We come from a tough, working class background, so we're very tight.

My mother cleaned homes and drove school buses, and when my family was on the brink of foreclosure... I started bartending and waitressing.

My parents, my family, that's the biggest inspiration in my life. I've been in a lot of dark spots in my life, and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be able to get out of it, but they are who they are. They followed me. They yelled at me. They screamed at me. They loved me.

The fight to make ends meet, keeps a man upon his feet.

I can't help but recall my dad and mom. Depression era kids, 8th and 9th grade educations, clawed and scratched to make a living as dairy farmers their whole life. At least two drought cycles nearly took it all away. They just worked harder, longer... and they made it.

Mom raised me all by herself, and although we went through our share of lean years, she always worked hard to make our home warm and welcoming.

I had four children, we all had to struggle to get up and get educated, and they all did their part, and we all did the best we could, and that's what a family and a parent is supposed to do.

I was in the heart and soul of Baltimore. I definitely felt a connection to the people. They're really hard-working people that want to have a better life. And I saw the struggle that exists there.

I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.

When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I'd come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn't afford the bill. Suddenly, everything feels easier.

My parents had always preached the virtues of hard work. But hard work is one thing; economic struggle is another.

There is something to be said for people who have to work hard, be creative, produce what they have with little - or no - means. Those of us from poor homes have the advantage of thinking for ourselves and of knowing that when times get hard, things could always be worse.

A lot of times when people become successful, people don't really understand what they had to do or the sacrifices they made to do that, or they assume that they had money. This is coming from, like, a kid who was broke and lived with roaches and a single mom in Dorchester.

All I'm trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty, unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.

No, I was two years older than the other guys. I was a war baby. My family were a lot poorer than they were. I'd had to fight too hard for anything I had in my life and to smash things up for me.

My father suffered much and toiled painfully all his life, for he had no resources other than the proceeds of his trade from which to support himself and his wife and family.

My advice: Don't quit. When I got to New York City, I lived so far below the poverty line, because I didn't give in and get a job at 7-Eleven. I think you can thrive in misery.

I'd seen my father. He was a poor man, and I watched him do astonishing things.

My family is everything. They love me unconditionally.