Quotes About Influence

Toni Morrison has a habit, perhaps traceable to the pernicious influence of William Faulkner, of plunging into the narrative before the reader has a clue to what is going on.

I went to the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, where I had a teacher really named Edward Shakespeare. He was a very influential figure in my childhood - I acted in high school a few times, but Mr. Shakespeare got me to lead in 'The Crucible.' I played John Proctor.

In my mid-adolescence, my friend Terry Martin and I became obsessed with William F. Buckley. This makes more sense when you realize that we were living in Bible Belt farming country miles from civilization. Buckley seemed impossibly exotic.

William Andrews Clark was caught in a bribery scandal during a campaign for the U.S. Senate - he was said to describe the Montana legislators this way: 'I never bought a man who wasn't for sale.'

I'm obsessed with Kate Middleton. Obsessed. I loved the Royal Wedding. I was so cynical going into it, and pseudo-political about the whole thing, but as soon as I saw her, I was utterly charmed. I'm just completely enchanted by Kate and William.

Some of the best advice I've gotten was from William Hurt and Harry Connick Jr. I've really learned a lot from both of them.

I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now.

There's no question that Roberts will vote like William Rehnquist... If he swings, it will be from right to far right.

William Kittredge's 'Hole in the Sky' is one of my favorite books. Ian Frazier's 'Family' I adore.

William McKinley Oswald was my high school football coach. He was a great coach and had a profound influence on my life. But I think he could have learned his method of motivating players from an army drill sergeant.

Until I was 16, I read nothing but science fiction. I loved William Gibson and I still do. But my favourite book when I was growing up, for a long time, was 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson, which I must have read about a dozen times when I was a teenager.

The honorable William Penn, late governor of Pennsylvania, was chosen agent to the Court of Britain, and directed to deliver the petition to the King himself and to endeavor by his personal influence to procure a favorable reception to this last address.

The book I always say that influenced me, subconsciously, because at the time I didn't know I wanted to be a writer, was William Goldman's 'Marathon Man.' That was the first adult thriller that I loved. I read it when I was 15 or so, when my father gave it to me.

I discovered John Fante when I was 17 years old - strangely, not through Charles Bukowski, but through William Saroyan, who was his drinking buddy.

I spent, whether consciously or unconsciously, most of my career trying to be something other than William F. Buckley's son.

I had lived with my mother in anger and love - I suppose most daughters do - but my children only knew her in one way: As the lady who thought they were smarter than Albert Einstein. As the lady who thought they wrote better than William Shakespeare. As the lady who thought every picture they drew was a Rembrandt.

Every writer from Montaigne to William S. Burroughs has pasted and cut from previous work. Every artist, whether it's Warhol or, you know, Dangermouse or whoever.

In the nineteen-thirties, one in four Americans got their news from William Randolph Hearst, who lived in a castle and owned twenty-eight newspapers in nineteen cities.

John Dos Passos, Raymond Carver, Flaubert and William Maxwell were all very influential when I first started writing. Now, the writers I'm most interested in are the writers who are most unlike me: for example, Denis Johnson.

Many of the writers who have inspired me most are outside the genre: Humorists like Robert Benchley and James Thurber, screenwriters like Ben Hecht and William Goldman, and journalists/columnists like H.L. Mencken, Mike Royko and Molly Ivins.

Even if I hadn't been cast as Doctor Who, my acting would probably have been influenced by William Hartnell or Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, and all of the other guys. Because those were the actors that I really watched every moment of, as opposed to Laurence Olivier.

I knew William Burroughs really well, and I was always star struck being around him. I adored him.

J. G. Ballard is just an example of the writers I like. Philip K. Dick is obviously one of them. I'm a big fan of William Gibson as well. He started cyberpunk with 'Neuromancer.' I've come to know him a little bit over Twitter, of all places, and I was always a huge fan of his. It's very cool to know he even knows I exist.

They don't make people like Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley anymore.