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Motivation Quote by Scott Brooks

"When you don't have much and you need to be at work, there's no such thing as being sick"

About this Quote

Poverty turns the body into a negotiable asset, and Scott Brooks frames that bargain with the blunt certainty of a locker-room rule. "There's no such thing as being sick" isn't literal bravado; it's the lived math of hourly wages, precarious jobs, and bosses who treat absence like insubordination. The line works because it collapses a medical reality into an economic one: illness becomes a luxury good, something you can only "afford" if you have paid leave, savings, or a safety net.

As a coach, Brooks knows how to talk in imperatives that override hesitation. Sports culture romanticizes playing hurt, but he pivots that ethic away from heroism and toward survival. The subtext is a critique disguised as toughness: people aren't choosing grit over rest because they're noble; they're choosing rent over recovery because the system makes the choice for them. It's empathy wearing the uniform of hard-nosed realism.

The context matters, too. Coming from someone associated with millionaire athletes and high-performance workplaces, the quote quietly punctures the myth that "work ethic" is evenly distributed. It suggests that the most punishing discipline often belongs to those with the least power, not the most ambition. In a culture that loves to moralize productivity, Brooks points at the darker engine underneath: when missing a shift can mean missed groceries, the body stops being a boundary and becomes an obstacle to be managed.

Quote Details

TopicWork Ethic
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Brooks, Scott. (2026, January 16). When you don't have much and you need to be at work, there's no such thing as being sick. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-you-dont-have-much-and-you-need-to-be-at-94833/

Chicago Style
Brooks, Scott. "When you don't have much and you need to be at work, there's no such thing as being sick." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-you-dont-have-much-and-you-need-to-be-at-94833/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"When you don't have much and you need to be at work, there's no such thing as being sick." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-you-dont-have-much-and-you-need-to-be-at-94833/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Scott Brooks (born July 31, 1965) is a Coach from USA.

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