We’ve sourced some of the most interesting and thought-provoking Slum Quotes from Bonnie Bedelia, Floyd Patterson, Shabana Azmi, Beppe Grillo, Jake LaMotta. Each of the following quotes is overflowing with creativity, and knowledge.
I grew up in a slum neighborhood – rows of tenements, with stoops, and kids all over the street. It was a real neighborhood – we played kick-the-can and ring-a-levio.
The fighter loses more than his pride in the fight; he loses part of his future. He’s a step closer to the slum he came from.
In 1986, I had gone on a hunger strike with Anand Patwardhan rooting for an alternative land for slum dwellers. My mother got very nervous and told my father to tell me that, ‘what am I doing?’ He sent me a telegram that read: ‘Best of luck, comrade!’
Italy is a tough country to be a comedian in – I can’t invent stuff like this. Nearly eighty crooks in Parliament – that’s about one crook in twelve. It’s worse than Scampia, the most dangerous Naples slum, which is infested by the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia. There, the criminals are only one in fifteen!
Besides being a slum kid with no great education in anything except how to fight and stay alive and steal, I also had this temper.
I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn’t born in me.
I was inspired by the Hole in the Wall project, where a computer with an internet connection was put in a Delhi slum. When the slum was revisited after a month, the children of that slum had learned how to use the worldwide web.
When I was 16, I made some little 35mm documentaries about the poor in London. I went round Notting Hill, which was a real slum in the 1950s, shooting film.
To one extent, if you’ve seen one city slum, you’ve seen them all.
The slum is the measure of civilization.
I am aware it’s easy and may be fashionable to pose with a slum child, and the irony of getting the media along means that it can come across as disingenuous. But you take these things on board, and you hope you mean it whenever you get stuck into something.
Slum children eat crow’s eggs for nutrition yet nobody respects this common bird. It’s the exotic birds which fascinate all.
‘Slumdog’ was my first movie, and I had never been to India before – I was just a teenager in the U.K. with my headphones and my Nike shoes. What did I know about growing up in a slum?
Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
I’ve been in many of them and to some extent I would have to say this; if you’ve seen one city slum you’ve seen them all.
We are seeing a changed Mumbai, but having showcased Dharavi in ‘Slum Dog Millionaire’ brought shame and disgrace to our city. Whenever the firangs visit Mumbai, they must visit Dharavi; it has become a sightseeing spot. However, I feel saddened about it.
I didn’t say I wouldn’t go into ghetto areas. I’ve been in many of them and to some extent I would say this; if you’ve seen one city slum, you’ve seen them all.
First of all there is always that artistic challenge of creating something. Or the particular experience to take slum life in that period and make something out of it in the form of a book. And then I felt some kind of responsibility to my family.
I came to know God when I was 12, started working in the ministry when I was 13, working in the slum area, living among the poor, loving it, and having this belief that to love the poor I needed to be poor.
