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I grew up below the poverty line; I didn't have as much as other people did. I think it made me stronger as a person, it built my character. Now I have a 4.0 grade point average and I want to go to college, and just become a better person.

I led a comfortable life, went to good schools and was privileged in many ways, but my father worked hard. We never considered ourselves rich.

I grew up with no money. No money. I always struggled and had the sense that there was this other class of people who went to college - this was when I was younger.

I never set out to be rich and famous. I wanted to follow my own path.

I grew up in poverty and my mother had to sacrifice a lot for us to eat and get an education - just imagine in a house where we were more than six children! But hard work and dedication is what it took for me to be here today.

Even when I was living below the poverty line as a novelist, I was still living better than 99.5% of the human population of the world. But in my little, soft realm of trying to amuse a few dozen middle-class people with my books and articles, I did struggle to survive in my own way.

I wanted to be successful. I definitely didn't want to be poor.

Anybody can be going from being broke to being wealthy, as I did.

I was just a regular kid in poverty, struggling.