My father started with nothing and is a self-made man. No matter what I do with my life, I can never match his accomplishments.
Mark Twain created a new type of literature and not a lot of people can say that. Not a lot of people can say they're absolutely original and completely self-made.
God's designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the self-made men, who take the credit.
I had always been fascinated with Napoleon because he was a self-made emperor; Victor Hugo said, 'Napoleon's will to power,' and it was the title of my paper. And I submitted it to my teacher, and he didn't think I had written it. And he wanted me to explain it to him.
My main goal is to be a self-made man and have control over what's mine.
The self-made man that some people believe is a myth? It could be, because you do it on the backs of other people.
Gerald Boyd was a classic specimen of the self-made man. Born poor, he worked and studied his way up out of poverty under the guidance of his widowed grandmother.
I've always loved Houdini, not just because of what he did, but also because of what he stood for. He was a self-made man in a time when the idea of celebrity was still new, and he used his celebrity for good.
Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
When you're a self-made man, you start very early in life. In my case it was at 9 years old when I started bringing income into the family. You get a drive that's a little different, maybe a little stronger, than somebody who inherited.