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My parents had to work hard, and I was always looking for a way to make it big - for their sakes as well as my own.

My parents were working class folks. My dad was a bartender for most of his life, my mom was a maid and a cashier and a stock clerk at WalMart. We were not people of financial means in terms of significant financial means. I always told them, 'I didn't always have what I wanted. I always had what I needed.' My parents always provided that.

My parents pushed us very hard to work, both in the home, doing chores and cooking, and at school.

My parents are both average size. For them to have a child who was very, very different and very, very small must have been incredibly hard.

I'm a diligent person, and that came directly from having hardworking parents.

I had a really hard time growing up; we were a large family, and we didn't have much money at home.

My parents were born in 1912; they graduated from college into the Depression. They kept notebooks of every nickel they spent, and these habits of frugality from having grown up so poor never left them.

Mom was a housewife; Dad was an accountant. They taught me a lot about the value of working hard.

I was from a tough neighborhood, and we didn't have a lot of money, but my dad worked hard, and my mom is good at budgeting things. That made me appreciate things.

The most surprising thing for my mother and father was when I was actually earning more money than them by the time I was about 18. They thought I was going to be the ne'er do well, who they'd have to keep worrying about.