A Quote by Chris Gardner

I cut grass, I did yard work, I did roofing, I cleaned basements to take care of my family. — © Chris Gardner
I cut grass, I did yard work, I did roofing, I cleaned basements to take care of my family.
[My dad] didn't do much apart from the traditional winning of bread. He didn't take me to get my hair cut or my teeth cleaned; he didn't make the appointments. He didn't shop for my clothes. He didn't make my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My mom did all of those things, and nobody ever told her when she did them that it made her a good mother.
I mowed yards with my grandpa at $10 a pop for awhile. I painted numbers on curbs. I cleaned swimming pools. I usually did all of that over the summer, and then I'd continue to do the yard part during the year as I went to school.
I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions.
I spend a lot of nights thinking How did I make it this far? I spend money every chance I get Cause god damn I work hard. Put here to take care of he family But how was I supposed to know If I don't take care of myself Then how am I supposed to grow?
I go out and walk around the yard. Sometimes I'll cut grass.
When America's early pioneers first turned their eyes toward the West, they did not demand that somebody take care of them if they got ill or got old. They did not demand maximum pay for minimum work, and even pay for no work at all.
Never did tombs look so ghastly white. Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funeral gloom. Never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously. Never did bough creak so mysteriously, and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.
Changing things is not easy, and I say this without any irony. It is not that someone does not want to, but because it is a hard thing to do. Take Obama, a forward-thinking man, a liberal, a democrat. Did he not pledge to shut down Guantanamo before his election? But did he do it? No, he did not. And may I ask why not? Did he not want to do it? He wanted to, I am sure he did, but it did not work out. He sincerely wanted to do it, but did not succeed, since it turned out to be very complicated.
Put yourself in the position of a person, sort of an ordinary American, "I'm a hard-working, god-fearing Christian. I take care of my family, I go to church, I, you know, do everything 'right'. And I'm getting shafted. For the last thirty years, my income has stagnated, my working hours are going up, my benefits are going down. My wife has to work two [jobs] to, you know, put food on the table. The children, God, there's no care for the children, the schools are rotten, and so on. What did I do wrong? I did everything you're supposed to do, but something's going wrong to me.
Work - get paid; don't work - don't get paid. Everybody is on commission, .. Try not coming to work for six weeks. Work gets paid; don't work, don't get paid. When they earn those dollars, and when you're 4, and you clean up your room, it really means mom cleaned up the room and you did two toys. When you're 14, it means you cleaned up your room. But still, we got the money caused by work, and then, we have teachable moments on how to handle the money they earn.
I started making choices based on what I wanted, and didn’t feel like I needed to justify them. If I wanted to cut my hair, I did it. If I wanted to move to New York, I did it. If I wanted to take a spontaneous road trip, I did it. At 24 I decided that my life is enough for me, and I stopped looking for some other piece to complete it.
How did George Bensen cut 'In Your Eyes?' How did I work with the Backstreet Boys? It all comes back to 'Sometimes When We Touch.'
When I was growing up, we had a widow living next door to us. So the habit was that if we went to the grocery store, we called her first. If we cut our yard, we cut her yard, no questions asked.
I did work with John McCain. I did work with Jeff Miller over in the House. And we put together not the bill that I wanted, but probably the most comprehensive V.A. health care bill in the modern history of this country.
When I was a young boy, very young boy, mothers didn't work. Women were home, they took care of the house, they washed the dishes and took care of the children. That's what they did, and that's what my mother did.
I had 16 other prisons that I needed to pay attention to, and we did. And I had 3,400 soldiers who were depending on me to take care of them, and I did.
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