Quotes About Influence

David Bowie: By 1985, I was something I never wanted to be: I was a well-accepted artist. I had started appealing to people who bought Phil Collins records. I suddenly didn't know my audience and, worse, I didn't care about them. I always looked OK in clothes – I was kind of a target for designers, always. They sort of made a beeline for me and tried to get me to wear their things. But I guess it was up to me to choose which ones I would wear.

It was people sitting in their little studios going plink, plonk, plink, plonk on one track, and then putting a vocal on the other or making a bass drum sound out of a synthesizer. Plus, we all started to listen to Europe rather than America, as that was where all the electronic experimentation was coming from, from Kraftwerk to Jean-Michel Jarre, from Telex to Yello, even the Yellow Magic Orchestra from Japan.

Midge Ure: In Slik, there were just girls in the audience. In Ultravox, the boys started to come too, in mackintoshes and moustaches. There were always lots of men at Ultravox concerts.

Nick Rhodes (musician): My parents would often watch Top of the Pops with me, as they were quite turned on by knowing what was going on in the charts, and I remember they actually liked Bowie. They liked him so much they took me to see him when he played the Empire Pool in Wembley, in London, in 1976, on the Station to Station tour, not once but twice. I'd become such a fan, and he had become such a focus of what I thought I wanted to do with my life at the time.

Neil Tennant: The whole renaissance of British pop starts with Gary Numan and 'Are "Friends" Electric?'. He took the David Bowie thing and reduced it to a black shirt and a pair of black jeans.

New York had a big influence on me growing up, and I was really part of the club scene - the Mudd Club and Studio 54. When you're living in New York, you are just bombarded with style, trying to figure out how to be cool and how to feel relaxed at the same time.

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;These five kings did a king to death.

Great is the hand that holds dominion over Man by a scribbled name.

My father had wanted to name me for Dylan Thomas. He had seen him speak on one of those drunken poetry tours he did.

The greatest impact on learning is the daily lived experiences of students in classrooms, and that is determined much more by how teachers teach than by what they teach.

Having genius means to digest influences while losing all footprint and trace of them.

A politician is an ass upon which everyone has sat except a man.

Great empires require great religions.

Great empires require great gods and great religions.

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.

Secrets are more powerful when people know you've got them.

Frankie appreciated both the accolades and the rejections equally, because both meant she'd had an impact. She wasn't a person who needed to be liked so much as she was a person who liked to be notorious.

Secrets are more powerful when people know you've got them," said Mr. Sutton. "You show them the tiniest edge of your secret, but the rest you keep under wraps.

Why did you do all that, Frankie?" asked Porter. "I mean, it was brilliant, what you did, what you made us do - but why would you bother? That's what I can't figure out." Frankie sighed. "Have you ever heard of the panopticon?" she asked him. Porter shook his head. "Have you ever been in love?" He shook his head again. "Then I can't explain it," Frankie said. They went inside and took the geometry test.

F]riendship is a method of castration that doesn't use a sharp object.

So she did not replay, but played the strategist. She retained more power by withholding an answer.

She made me act normal. Because I was. Because I could. She told me to breathe and sit up. And I did what she asked. Again.