Down and Out in Paris and London quotes

Poverty is what I am writing about, and I had my first contact with poverty in this slum.

Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work.

It is altogether curious, your first contact with poverty.

…you also discover the great redeeming feature of poverty: the fact that it annihilates the future.

It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out.

A plongeur is a slave, and a wasted slave, doing stupid and largely unnecessary work.

Fear of the mob is a superstitious fear.

I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy.