A Quote by Zach Braff
Well, I've thought about donating, but they get so many damn donations already. I read about one foundation that raised over 100 million dollars. Well where the hell did that go? For all I know every starving child has a 2 story house by now. Or maybe they're all raging alcoholics, like homeless people. Homeless people who are more effective when it comes to raising money. Who wants to support alcoholic children? Not me.
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Many people say, "When I get a million dollars, then I'll be happy because I'll have security," but that's not necessarily so. Most people who acquire a million dollars want another and then another. Or they could be like a good friend of mine who made and lost every dime of a million dollars. It didn't bother him a bit. He wasn't excited about it, but he explained to me, "Zig, I still know everything necessary to make another million dollars, and I've learned what to do not to lost it. I'll simply go back to work and earn it again.
As a child, my idea of the West was that it was a miasma of poverty and misery, like that of the homeless 'Little Match Girl'in the Hans Christian Andersen story. When I was in the boarding nursery and did not want to finish my food, the teacher would say:'Think of all the starving children in the capitalist world!
When you're spending eight to 10 hours out there, the homeless guy is no longer homeless; it's Dave. They become people to you. I think we're really good in this country about saying that they're homeless and, therefore, they don't exist.
I was worth about over a million dollars when I was 23 and over ten million dollars when I was 24, and over a hundred million dollars when I was 25 and... it wasn't that important — because I never did it for the money.
What shocks me is that so many people leave care and become homeless, and when you're homeless you get into crime, prostitution and drugs, and it is a vicious circle. That's what we need to change.
People like me - who set up a homelessness foundation, worked with all the homeless charities, authored probably six of seven homelessness papers - don't make changes without thinking through the impact of them on the homeless.
I can read books and news articles about people who have excelled, people who have done extremely well in their chosen field, or made a lot of money, or married well, or what have you. When some people read this stuff, they get inspired, but when I read it, it makes me feel worse. Sometimes I wish I had never learned to read.
When I get that question, about diversity, I don't go, "Yeah, well you know they don't pay me." That's not my story. I own six properties; Hollywood has been damn good to me. Now you can ask me, "Have they paid you what you deserve?" That's the question, but you'd have to go to the studios, I don't know. I do the work!
For me, I grew up in a house doing charity work for homeless people, and my parents had a lot of homeless friends. We were always taught to not discriminate and not judge.
'Death at an Early Age' was about racial segregation in Boston. 'Illiterate America' was about grownups who can't read. 'Rachel and Her Children' was about people who were homeless in the middle of Manhattan.
Frequently over the years, people have thought that they know me. Every character actor has this story, I'm sure. It goes like this: 'Um, do you play soccer?' 'Did you go to such and such church?' 'I knew you when you were with so and so... ' Then I go, 'Well, sorry...' and then they say, 'Wait a minute. Are you an actor?'
Have you ever noticed that the only metaphor we have in our public discourse for solving problems is to declare war on it? We have the war on crime, the war on
cancer, the war on drugs. But did you ever notice that we have no war on homelessness? You know why? Because there's no money in that problem. No money to be made off of the homeless. If you can find a solution to homelessness where the corporations and politicians can make a few million dollars each, you will see the streets of America begin to clear up pretty damn quick!
I realized that my money would do vastly more good for others than it could for me and decided to make a commitment to donating to the most effective charities I could find. Many people contacted me asking how they could do this as well, and so I set up giving what we can.
Well it's not that I HATE them, but honestly if I saw two homeless people begging for money, one white and one black, and I only had one quarter... Well I'd probably keep it actually.
I get mail from people all over the world now from people who tell me that they didn't really understand Down syndrome, but because of me they have read about it and studied it and now they know a lot more about it.
Most people never really sat down and got to know a homeless person, but every homeless person is just a real person that was created by God and it is the same kind of different as us; they just have a different story.
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