You have no idea what you would do if you were poor until you are poor. And not intermittently poor or formerly not-poor, but born poor, expected to be poor, and treated by bureaucracies, gatekeepers, and well-meaning respectability authorities as inherently poor. Then, and only then, will you understand the relative value of a ridiculous status symbol to someone who intuits that they cannot afford to not have it.

The weird thing is, I always say to people, "When you're poor, being poor sucks. But being poor together makes it a lot better." Right? Because you're in it together. And it doesn't discount the fact that you don't have much. But then you start to enjoy the things that you do have. And that is each other. And so we laughed. We enjoyed ourselves. We had something that sometimes you don't have when you have too much. And that is the ability to focus on the human beings around you.

All too often, they’re poor or struggle financially or earn less than they are capable of, not because of what they know but because of what they do not know.

I was born poor, I have lived poor, I wish to die poor.

Poor people are poor because they don't know how to get rich.

I don’t need them to tell me what it feels like to be poor … I already know how this feels, how it smells and how it tastes! When I talk to them … I want them to tell me about their hopes and aspirations, about their dreams… about the road ahead and how they imagine it will shape up out in front of them to make the dreaming and hoping come true. I ask them about assistance, about the health, and about their families near or far.

To live miserable we know not why, to have the dread of hunger, to work sore and yet gain nothing—this is the essence of poverty.

When you are poor, live as a poor man.

Being poor is a little like having an earache over a Bank Holiday. All you can think about is the pain and how long it will be before a healing hand can be found to take away the anguish.

What a miserable thing it is to be poor.

Do we know our poor people? Do we know the poor in our house, in our family? Perhaps they are not hungry for a piece of bread. Perhaps our children, husband, wife, are not hungry, or naked, or dispossessed, but are you sure there is no one there who feels unwanted, deprived of affection?

Poverty is a state of mind.

If you have not tasted poverty, you will not be able to manage blessing when it comes. If you have not tasted humiliation, you will not be able to manage honour when it comes.

On several occasions during my visit, she referred to herself as poor, and that depressed me. Most people would say they're broke. That word suggests a temporary setback. Poor, on the other hand, conveys a permanence.