"I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man's paying for it, I'd have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, 'Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.'"
About this Quote
Then comes the pivot: “But I had to work.” Simple sentence, hard stop. Matthews frames labor not as noble suffering but as constraint - summer isn’t freedom, it’s maintenance. The mother’s instruction, quoted verbatim, does double duty. It’s tender and strict, a household policy memo. “Get that job” is urgency; “hold on to it until August 30” is discipline and precarity in one phrase. You don’t just work; you cling.
In context, this is the voice of a journalist who built a brand on reading politics as class performance. He’s locating himself on the map: not the carefree scion, not the martyr, but the kid trained to treat employment as a lifeline. The subtext is a quiet indictment of elites who can afford to treat youth as a playground - and a reminder that “opportunity” often starts with who gets to leave town.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Matthews, Chris. (2026, January 16). I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man's paying for it, I'd have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, 'Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.'. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-mean-if-somebody-said-to-me-junior-year-of-87441/
Chicago Style
Matthews, Chris. "I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man's paying for it, I'd have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, 'Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.'." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-mean-if-somebody-said-to-me-junior-year-of-87441/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man's paying for it, I'd have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, 'Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.'." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-mean-if-somebody-said-to-me-junior-year-of-87441/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2026.
