Quotes About Influence

I do not mean to imply that outside circumstances or other people do not play a role in our lives. Certainly, many factors influence the conditions we experience. But if we focus our attention solely upon those factors, we feed a spirit of fear and uncertainty regarding our future.

Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that's it. No America, no jazz. I've seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Africa.

If President Nixon's secretary, Rosemary Woods, had been Moses' secretary, there would only be eight commandments.

In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques.

I guess it's like James Joyce when he was a kid, you know. He hung out with all the great writers of the day, and he was a little kid, like, with tennis shoes on, and they said 'Look at this lame!' They didn't use those words in those days. They said 'God, here comes this nut.' And he told them, 'I'm great!' And he sat with them, and he loved to be with them, and it ended up that he was great.

It was Strindberg, or more exactly, A Dream Play, that incited me to write for the theater.

Neither do I greatly hope to influence the trained man of speculation, who has already found a theory of things which satisfies his reason.

Do you quantify your own success in terms of money, power, or prestige?

In his 1964 book, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan famously said that "the medium is the message.

As we used to note, some conductors are evil geniuses, but all are evil.

The more control you have over your life, the more responsible you feel for your own success - or failure.

When I look at designer books I am sometimes puzzled why they don't share their inspiration, when it's obvious somebody had such great inspiration.

There are lots of people shaping decisions, and so if we want to predict correctly, we have to pay attention to everybody who is trying to shape the outcome, not just the people at the pinnacle of the decision-making pyramid.

I have a problem with the way the House is run. I believe that a few people at the top of a pyramid of power have controlled this place for a long time.

I've always looked up to Amy Poehler and, obviously, people like Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Mel Brooks, and the 'Monty Python' guys.

My mother is British; she's from Shrewsbury. She turned me onto 'Monty Python' very early.

I grew up on 'Monty Python.'

Monty Python has such a huge following... myself included.

Probably the biggest influence on me, strange though it may sound, was the 70s, a decade of invention. Growing up then had a huge impact on me. People wanted to experiment and were hungry for change. I was influenced by the literature and art of the time; listening to John Peel and Annie Nightingale and watching 'Monty Python.'

'Monty Python And The Holy Grail' is a hugely important movie to me. I remember watching it for the first time on cable when I was about 13 years old.

Social media isn't as quaint as it was when I started my Livejournal back in high school.

The thing is when you're... well-enough known, you get asked to speak places, and they don't really think about whether or not you're qualified. They just want somebody that will be a drawing card for the audience. So it's up to you to decide whether or not it's foolish to get up and speak to these people.

Mum was a high-jumper and qualified to go to the Olympics, but it got into the newspapers that she was married to my father, and the church put pressure on her to pull out of the Olympic team, saying, 'You can't be exposing all your legs.' That's how strong the influence of the church was on us all.

Sometimes I go home, put the game on, and think, 'How can I miss that?' It affects you; it also affects you to know your career also depends on the opinion of journalists, fans, directors, and sometimes they're not really qualified to judge.