Quotes About Influence

Letters actually work. Even the top dog himself takes time every day to read 10 letters that are picked out by staff. I can tell you that every official that I've ever worked with will tell you about the letters they get and what they mean.

As president, you can't just say, 'I want this,' or, 'Do that.' A president has to lead the American people to where he wants to go, and the chief of staff needs to help him get it done.

Many chiefs of staff are close, very close, to their bosses on Capitol Hill.

At the minor-league and major-league level, you know how important your coaching staff is, but in a big market it becomes absolutely huge.

A president is always cosseted by his staff.

Ladies and gentlemen, even my own staff challenges me. When I issue edicts, commands, orders, ideas, you would think that there would be overwhelming blanket acquiescence, approval, and support.

I think when you have strong leadership at the coaching level and you empower the coach and the coaching staff, you have a lot more stability.

It's certainly true that presidents have confidantes who rise above what you would call just staff.

Preventing staff from having too much influence and decision-making power is fairly easy. Appropriate procedural safeguards can be installed to prevent staff from, among other things, self-dealing, making decisions in an isolated manner, or committing funds without oversight.

Allowing staff to dictate frameworks and policy outcomes without appropriate checks by elected leaders has corrosive effects.

Of all the many leaders I have met in the course of my life, none made a deeper impression on me than Nelson Mandela. His courage, compassion, humility and wisdom were without parallel on the world stage, and he himself was an enduring source of inspiration.

I didn't always mean to be an actor. I was carried onto the stage when I was two days old, but I never acted as a child. My parents were stage people.

Sometimes I say in France: Europe is no more the center of the world - and the United States, neither. We have other key players on the international stage: China, of course; but also Brazil, India and South Africa. And their influence is very, very strong.

I learned from the guys before me - Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.

Then I went through a big Peggy Lee stage, then I became Annie Ross, then Judy Collins.

When you conduct opera, you control the stage. But with a film, the film controls you.

I've said numerous times that I play to have a stage that people will listen to, and I pray to God that I do right by my influence.

There is also something called the Legislature. There is something called the press. There is something called people. These are all different players on the stage.

Hiphop hasn't had stages of growth through its 30 years of existence.

Cinema affects everything, from the way I get dressed to how I build my stages.

'The Prince's blunt candor has been a scandal for 500 years. The book was placed on the Papal Index of banned books in 1559, and its author was denounced on the Elizabethan stages of London as the 'Evil Machiavel.' The outrage has not dimmed with time.

I love 'Dogman' by King's X and Living Colour's 'Stain.'

I may have my personal political thing, but we never wanted it to stain the show.

I grew up in a feminist household in Hackney, East London, my mum was responsible in many ways for the feminist stain on the socialist party, and my dad had really strong feminist leanings.