I think I’ve got my business notions and my sense for that sort of thing from my dad. My dad never had a chance to go to school. He couldn’t read and write. But he was so smart. He was just one of those people that could just make the most of anything and everything that he had to work with.

Parton credits her entrepreneurial instincts not to formal education but to her father’s practical intelligence and resourcefulness. By emphasizing that he was illiterate yet “so smart,” she challenges narrow definitions of intelligence and success, suggesting that ingenuity, judgment, and the ability to maximize limited means can be as formative as schooling. The quote also functions as a tribute: her business acumen is framed as inherited and learned through observation of a parent who modeled resilience and improvisation. In Parton’s broader public persona—self-made, strategic, and philanthropic—the remark underscores a theme of honoring working-class roots while validating nontraditional forms of knowledge.