Quotes About Influence

I don't want my thoughts to die with me, I want to have done something. I'm not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution - know that my life has meaning.

I spent 13 years in Spain, and when you spend that amount of time somewhere, it has a deep influence on you.

I owe everything to Spain - that's where I learned to write, to read, and to play football.

In Spain, there's a lot more publicity.

I know from my Real Madrid team-mates Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira and my family in Andalucia that people look up to me in Spain.

Truth to be told, yes, it does feel very strange to be in the Spain setup without Xavi. Ever since I broke through for Barca and Spain he's always been around. We've always had a great relationship and he's always set an example in every way, when it comes to camaraderie, how much help he's given me and, above all, in footballing terms.

When I was growing up, in this country, I would use the name Hillary and in Spain, I would use the name Hilaria.

When I watch the best in the world, I want to be like them. We all have a fascination, all of us, with Spain.

Don't spam your music to people... let the people around you share it.

Anne Briggs is great, and I love Sandy Denny and Steeleye Span.

'Grease' is the most successful thing I've ever been part of. It spans generations.

The media, the polls and our legislatures fortunately have short attention spans.

I was 22 when my mother gave me the original box set of 'Roots' and she said, 'I want you to watch this.' I watched the whole thing back to back in the span of 24 hours. It had a profound effect on me. It felt like my story.

My attention span was quite short and I just wanted to use a lot of beautiful words. When I read a poem like 'Howl', or 'Lady Lazarus' by Sylvia Plath, I felt myself being moved - I wanted to do that for other people.

The greatest guitar player in the world today for me is Paco de Lucia, who is actually Spanish.

Wherever you've got a migrant culture, the food evolves and in New Orleans it's that French and Spanish influence. So you get gumbo, which came out of French bouillabaisse, jambalaya - a version of paella - and the boudin sausage, which is like the French boudin.

Spanish is such an important language globally.

The way you pronounce words the Puerto Rico way, it's not really global for music. Colombians speak some of the best Spanish in the world. So having a Colombian next to me every time I write makes my music more international.

People have lots of misconceptions about me. My mum, who is half French and half Spanish, gets outraged when I'm called quintessentially English. I owe my looks to my mum-which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 percent of my entire career.

Everything that is really Mexican is either Aztec or Spanish.

Some of my earliest political feelings were based on the anti-Japanese bubblegum cards I got. There were also Spanish Civil War bubblegum cards. Awful.

I listened to classical guitar and Spanish guitar, as well as jazz guitar players, rock and roll and blues. All of it. I did the same thing with my voice.

In French literature, you can choose a la carte; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal.

One of my reasons for living in California is its close proximity to Mexico. The Latin influence is in every corner of the community. My love of Spanish music hasn't wavered since the '50s. I could hear the blues voicing from the Flamanco families and I always dig for inspiration in Latin music.