It is a cruel injustice to tell a bootless man to pull himself up by his bootstraps.
It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.
Over the vast plain I wander, observing a thousand strange and incredible and terrifying manifestations of the Bootstrap-lifting impulse.
They say, 'Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.' They don't realize that not everybody's bootstraps are the same length.
