Quotes About Influence

When I was a teenager I fell in love with TS Eliot.

When I was a teenager, I got into SF, quite heavily, and that too has had a major impact on my writing.

John Barry was the first film composer I was aware of. As a teenager I owned several of his Bond soundtracks.

I think I was probably an early teenager when I discovered Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and a bunch of people that are on a long list of artists. They were important to me, especially as an early adolescent.

My first hero, as a teenager, was James Connolly. I remember discovering that he was a feminist, and that was an eye-opener, coming from a man of such poverty.

As a teenager I was crazy about David Bowie. He was a huge inspiration for me. I dressed a little bit crazily in school and dyed my hair every colour under the sun.

When I was a teenager, I met a comedian who I admired, and he was very rude to me. That's why when people come up to me I try not to be rude. I don't want to name who he is, but it really put me off watching his stuff since.

I definitely feel like kids do look up to me as a potential role model. It's an honor, but it can also be a burden. I may be on TV, but I'm also a teenager. I don't get it right every time. But I always do my absolute best to stay above board in every way. My fans inspire me to be a better person.

'Lord of the Flies' is one of my favorite books. That was a big influence on me as a teenager; I still read it every couple of years.

When I was teenager, Britney Spears was it - that was the pop world that was happening, and I knew I wasn't in it.

The first book I bought with my own money as a teenager was Martin Amis's 'Money.' You know that thing when you read a book and you think, 'I'm going to have to read every word ever written by this man.'

There is a saying: 'The child is parent to the adult', which means whatever happens to you as a child or teenager affects the adult you become. You are forged in your history. And fiction is an incredibly important force in shaping children, and that's why fiction needs to be diverse.

When it's all said and done, jazz with a capital J is where I'm coming from. Dexter Gordon, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk - that's what I really studied when I was a teenager and what really fueled my passion.

When I was a teenager I hated having Bloomberg as a last name and being seen simply as someone's daughter. I used to shy away from it in every way. As I got older, I began to realize that it was something I could use to make a difference in the causes I cared about. I learned to be proud of my last name.

Toni Morrison was a big influence on my work since I was a teenager, what she did with English. I joke that I think she speaks 20 Englishes simultaneously, that she knows how to do that.

In terms of Ray Liotta, when I was a teenager growing up in Colorado, I didn't have pictures of girls on my wall. I had pictures of Ray Liotta on my wall. Along with Mike Patton, he was one of my heroes.

As a teenager, my brother's girlfriend came into my life, and I just thought she was the bomb. I followed her around, and she could just say anything, and it would influence me. She took me to my first nice restaurant, bought me my first nice handbag, and took me to my first Alvin Ailey show when I was 14, which changed my life.

The guys love us - they think we're sexy - but the girls take us seriously... I've always said that when I was a teenager growing up, I wish I had girls like Salt-n-Pepa to look up to. If I'd had someone I could relate to, a lot of things would probably be different.

My father was a director, and my mother and grandparents were actors, so I spent a great deal of my time as a teenager trying to get away from the theatre.

Artists like Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Albert King, Ann Peebles, Isaac Hayes, and so many more gave me hope when I was an angst-filled teenager trying to make sense of it all... They were my teachers. Through their music, I learned how to live, how to be true to myself, and how to tell my story as a songwriter the way that I was feeling it.

I was a child in the '60s and a teenager in the '70s, which was the golden age of film as far as I'm concerned, between American film and the Italian reinvention of genre film.

I can't possibly overstate how much influence Rush had on me as a young teenager. I would say from about 1981 to 1987, they were my gods.

I think that, any young child or teenager, you take a lot from your parents when you're growing up.

Our relationship with presidents is often like that of a teenager and parent. He's our leader, but sometimes we rail against his decisions for us. We push back at times to make sure he knows who's boss.