To begin with, I have not a penny." "I had not a penny when I began to range." "Ah, but your poverty was your capital.

Being an American, it was impossible you should remain what you were born, and being born poor--do I understand it ?--it was therefore inevitable that you should become rich.

You were in a position that makes one's mouth water; you looked round you and saw a world full of things you had only to step up to and take hold of.

When I was twenty, I looked around me and saw a world with everything ticketed 'Hands off!' and the deuce of it was that the ticket seemed meant only for me.

I couldn't go into business, I couldn't make money, because I was a Bellegarde.