A Quote by David Dinkins

I went downtown as a lawyer and then I worked in a liquor store at night, as I had done all through law school. And so when I got to the point where I could give up the night job, I joined the political club.
The reason everybody is so amazed and enamored with me right now is because I have worked every angle, I have worked every formula, I have worked every equation, I have seen every club, I have seen every performance, I have seen every joke, I have studied, I have done my job. That's why I'm good. It's not because I got up one night and decided I wanted to tell some f - -ing jokes.
I enjoyed [playing lawyer in From The Hip] as an ode to my dad. My dad went to Harvard and Harvard Law School, so he had some friends that practiced in Boston. So, there was a big law firm that he hooked me up with the senior partner, then the senior partner hooked me up with a young lawyer who worked in the firm. And the young lawyer was married to a public defender. So I would hang out with them, and I could see both sides of it, those that are corporate attorneys and those that help the poor and the disenfranchised.
I worked night security for Estee Lauder. It was horrible. I worked from midnight till 8 in the morning. I did that just so I could sleep during the day, then go into Manhattan to train with Renzo at night. I would train, then go work all night in a guard booth.
When I was 13, I had my first job with my dad carrying shingles up to the roof. And then I got a job washing dishes at a restaurant. And then I got a job in a grocery store deli. And then I got a job in a factory sweeping Cheerio dust off the ground.
I even went to film school at School of Visual Arts in New York City. And then, after that, I got a day job at Universal publicity department, then moved over to Disney publicity department. So I had this day job, and at night I would study music.
I went to a state school in Christchurch, New Zealand, and then straight on to the University of Canterbury. But I worked part-time all the way through high school: first with a paper round, then at a fast-food outlet, a video store and a hardware store.
I’m seventeen years old, my name is Juan García Madero, and I’m in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my uncle insisted, and in the end I gave in. I’m an orphan, and someday I’ll be a lawyer. That’s what I told my aunt and uncle, and then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.
My first job with Walmart was unloading trucks in a warehouse. Then I worked as an assistant manager in a store, and I was lucky enough to get into our buyer-training program. I loved merchandising and had a career path that led me through Sam's Club and Walmart International.
My father had nine children, and when I had my first, he said, 'None of my kids got up in the middle of the night.' And I remember thinking, 'You didn't get up in the middle of the night! Every kid gets up in the middle of the night!'
I've been driving in the city for years because, as a stand-up in N.Y.C., you can perform at more comedy clubs a night if you have a car. Getting from club to club by subway is too slow at night and too expensive by cab. So, many comics live far out from Manhattan and drive in every night.
I met with a bad bout after the trial was over, and while the trial was on I habit of stopping by the liquor store and buying a bottle of wine every night. Just to forget the days courtroom proceedings. Then the next morning I'd get up, go to court again and do it all over again. Well, by 1985, I was a fall down, low bottom drunk. An alcoholic. And in 1989, I finally got sober. And I found the rooms of a 12 Step Recovery Program. And I diligently worked those 12 Steps, and I have changed my life dramatically. I'm happily married. I converted to Christianity.
We started watching 'Doctor Who' as a family because our first daughter was a cranky baby, and she would get up during the night - and it was her dad's job to stay up because I worked at night.
After I got out of law school and worked in a big law firm, I thought, there are so many kids like me, in my neighborhood, that could be here if they had more support from their families, better financial aid. But the gap is so wide once you miss that opportunity. So I was always interested in figuring out, How do you bridge that? I felt, as a lawyer, when I was mentoring and working with kids, that I gained a level of groundedness that I just couldn't get sitting on the forty-seventh floor of a fancy firm.
I stayed with them for about a year up there and, at night, worked over in Long Island at a club called The High Hat Club which was like a pseudo jazz / blues place.
I was working at this club in downtown L.A. from four to eight at night, just Eddie Rubin, the drummer, and I.
I did 'I'd Do Anything,' and then a play and then 'A Little Light Music.' I played jazz in a night club where nobody listened to me for two years. I sold cereal in a market for a while. I worked in a clothes shop in Brixton. But that's the life of an actor. You never really know when your next job is coming.
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