Quotes About Influence

I grew up in a deeply Catholic home. Our parents always encouraged us to march to our own drums, though, so some of us are still Catholic and some are not. That's always going to be a part of me though; little bits of it trickle into my work. Whether it's an embrace or a rejection, I'm not always sure, but I can't avoid it.

Leadership is not a basket of tricks or strategies or skills that you pull out. Leadership begins with the quality of the person.

I think all writers of my age who are brought up on films probably by the age of 16 have seen many more films than they have read classics of literature. We can't help but be influenced by film. Film has got some great tricks that it's taught writers.

I am sometimes asked to name my favourite books. The list changes, depending on my mood, the year, tricks played by memory. I might mention novels by Nabokov and Calvino and Tolkien on one occasion, by Fitzgerald and Baldwin and E.B. White on another. Camus often features, as do Tolstoy, Borges, Morrison and Manto.

Machiavelli had some cold tricks for people who wanted to be demagogues and wanted to take over the world.

Our music did not sound like the Beatles in any way, shape or form. I could never find it in myself to use those Beatles tricks in Styx records because they were sacred to me. But what they did always influenced my thinking.

Mind Playing Tricks on Me' or 'Mind of a Lunatic' were great songs. As far as my favorite Geto Boys album? None of them impress me.

Being in adverts, it's a tricky thing, I suppose.

Anyone who believes you can't change history has never tried to write his memoirs.

Any man who has ever tried to use political power for the common good has felt an awful sense of powerlessness.

Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference has never tried to fall asleep with a mosquito in the room.

All what we hope for is that a day will come, when we have all gone, when people will say that this man has tried, and his family tried. This is all there is to seek in this world.

If you read the poets of the 19th century in Latin America, you would see that Havana or Mexico City or Buenos Aires are incredibly modern and global cities that they were not. And eventually they became real, and they became real because people read these books and tried to live in a better world.

I don't think there'd be a Tina Fey now if I hadn't tried to look good in the beginning.

I tried to contribute to the defeat of the Soviets. If I contributed 1%, it is 1% of something enormous.

I tried to emulate my favourite guitar players, the old bluesmen like Blind Willie McTell and Big Bill Broonzy. I used to sit by the record player and copy Chuck Berry and the Beatles. You can never copy someone completely, so you end up developing your own style.

When I was a teenager, I would have tried anything that an actress I liked was doing to get thin.

I had one drama teacher who was amazing, Ms. Perkins. She really tried to inspire me and get me going.

Leading by example is something I've always tried to pride myself on.

I'd be resentful if shareholders who don't know the business tried to tell me what to do.

I'm a role model now. I didn't know I was gonna have 13-year-old fans, so I've tried to change a few things here and there. But I also know that the girls don't want me to be Miley Cyrus, either.

I think the first thing that my sons will tell you, that I never tried to be their coach. And I didn't give them as much advice as some people might think, being a former player myself and a former quarterback. If they asked, I gave them my opinion.

The music that I chose during my life, it wasn't arbitrary. It was all in my family home when I was growing up. I never tried to record anything I hadn't heard before the age of 10. Otherwise, I couldn't do it authentically.

I've always just tried to be a guy who will lead by example, and I feel like if something has to be said, I will say it.