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Life's Pleasures Quote by Debi Mazar

"I grew up on food stamps. I come from a very humble background. And I've had many friends that have been destitute - you know, running into trouble - and places like The Midnight Mission have given them hope and have fed them and gotten them back on the right path"

About this Quote

There is a particular kind of credibility you can’t fake in Hollywood, and Debi Mazar is banking on it here: lived proximity to poverty, named plainly and without glamor. “Food stamps” is doing more work than a generic “struggled” ever could. It’s a concrete marker of class, a shorthand that collapses biography into a social fact. In one stroke she positions herself as someone who has been counted, processed, and overlooked by systems people love to moralize about.

The quote also sidesteps the classic celebrity charity trap: sweeping empathy without accountability. Mazar doesn’t claim she “saved” anyone; she centers friends “running into trouble,” a phrase that keeps agency and messiness in frame without turning hardship into spectacle. The subtext is quiet but pointed: poverty isn’t an abstract policy debate, it’s a rotating cast of people you know, people who can slide from stability to desperation quickly.

Naming The Midnight Mission anchors the sentiment in a real institution rather than a vibe. That specificity signals seriousness and offers listeners a map: here is where help happens, here is what it looks like. “Hope,” “fed,” “back on the right path” reads like the language nonprofits use because it’s legible to donors, but it’s also a tactical reframing of what services do: not just charity, but triage and re-entry.

Culturally, this is Mazar using her platform not to perform purity, but to argue for dignity through the bluntest proof she has: she’s been close enough to the edge to know it’s not a morality play.

Quote Details

TopicHope
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Mazar, Debi. (2026, January 17). I grew up on food stamps. I come from a very humble background. And I've had many friends that have been destitute - you know, running into trouble - and places like The Midnight Mission have given them hope and have fed them and gotten them back on the right path. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-grew-up-on-food-stamps-i-come-from-a-very-57883/

Chicago Style
Mazar, Debi. "I grew up on food stamps. I come from a very humble background. And I've had many friends that have been destitute - you know, running into trouble - and places like The Midnight Mission have given them hope and have fed them and gotten them back on the right path." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-grew-up-on-food-stamps-i-come-from-a-very-57883/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I grew up on food stamps. I come from a very humble background. And I've had many friends that have been destitute - you know, running into trouble - and places like The Midnight Mission have given them hope and have fed them and gotten them back on the right path." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-grew-up-on-food-stamps-i-come-from-a-very-57883/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Debi Mazar (born August 15, 1964) is a Actress from USA.

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