Quotes About Influence

Growing up, the question of faith and the question of God, specifically with Christianity, has been something that's informed me quite a lot, but it's also very loaded. The way that it's often expressed in America is very different from the way that I view things.

Specifically for 'Faults,' the three films I mention most as inspiration are 'Dogtooth,' 'Fargo' and 'Punch-Drunk Love.'

I have always been fascinated by cults and mind control, and specifically deprogramming from the cult.

Growing up, I was all about Jim Varney's character, Ernest P. Worrell, specifically 'Ernest Goes to Camp.' I was also obsessed with '3 Ninjas,' 'Cop and a Half' and 'Rookie of the Year.'

I know people like spectacle, but I'm interested in moving people.

One thing that is constantly on my iPod is India Arie - I like her a lot; I listen to her a lot. I think she is just a spectacular artist.

In the hands of great school leaders, Teach First can make a spectacular difference.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

If you were to ask any children of any politician, when you've been part of a political life, you are not on the sidelines. There is no such thing as a member of a political family who is only a spectator. You see the wheeling and the dealing. That doesn't intimidate me. I'll do a little of that myself, on behalf of my constituents.

'The Author' is a play about responsibility, how active we are as spectators and how responsible we are for what we choose to look at.

It certainly is dangerous that there are only a few clubs left in Europe that can afford to pay millions. At the end of the day however, the spectators decide the rates of pay - by watching the games and consuming the goods and services advertised on sports TV programmes.

Growing up, I loved Morticia Addams and Lily Munster on one hand, and Jeannie from 'I Dream of Jeannie' on the other. Two completely different ends of the spectrum, kind of like me.

I met Donald Barthelme when I was 30, and it's fair to say that before that moment, I was pre-modern, and after I met him, I was nudged rather forcefully towards this other end of the spectrum.

We have demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum. It's not helpful. It's destructive. It's harmful. So, I don't like demagoguery whether it comes from the left, it comes from the right.

The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech.

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

It is open for anyone to have freedom of speech, and I guess we can all play a role in trying to make a difference in the world. Particularly if your leader is not helping in that area.

If I go to a party I don't feel like I have to be in the centre. But I do find myself quite often being placed in that position. Even when I was younger at school, I would be asked to make a speech. I don't remember putting up my hand and all that often but I'd just find myself there.

Experience has shown us that attempts to control the Internet will invariably fail. We should be instructed by the failed efforts of China to regulate political content, the efforts of America to regulate Internet gambling, or the efforts of Australia to regulate certain speech. By its very nature, the Internet will always resist such controls.

A man speaks only when driven to speech by something outside himself - like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks.

You can't just give a speech and expect people to fall down and agree with you.

Black musicians were imitating speech cadences, and Kerouac was imitating the black musicians' breath cadences on their horns and brought it back to speech. It always was speech rhythms or cadences as far as the ear that Kerouac was developing. All passed through black music.

In our generation, the role models were Gandhi and Nehru. We revered them. They were venerated personalities. I read almost every speech of Nehru.

I got an invitation to speak in the European parliament and I met Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the U.N. I took those opportunities to talk about what I thought was right. That those people, who are more important and powerful than I am, think I'm relevant enough to give a speech is mind-blowing.