Quotes About Influence

When I first saw Dick Gregory on television, growing up in Queens, it was startling and amazing, because nobody else was doing what he was doing.

Once the herd starts moving in one direction, it's very hard to turn it, even slightly.

As I remember my grandfather and those Christmas mornings he gave for a little girl's pleasure, I know that often a big life starts with doing small things.

When it starts to seem like you have popped into bed with a specific party, it makes it difficult for people to believe you are not doing someone else's bidding for them.

There are a lot of things I can take, and a few that I can't. What I can't take is when my older brother, who's everything that I want to be, starts losing faith in things. I saw that look in your eyes last night. I don't ever want to see that look in your eyes again.

When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative, it starts to affect our creative juices.

Every role I've played, that could've happened. It's nice, it happens, but it is rather disconcerting when a young child comes up to at the airport and starts doing your lines, it happens.

Shamir and Nasir were my homeboys. They were from Philly and they're Muslim. I'm not a Muslim, but I liked their names. They were like, 'your name starts with an N, so just come up with Nahmir.' So I just put 'Nah' in front of 'Amir.'

I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in the film reads my novel and then starts discussing the novel with someone. The idea that my book can inspire another artist and be part of that other artist's work... that's the reason I write.

It starts with campaign finance reform.

Now, I don't know whether a film can change the world, but I know that it starts - I know the power of it - I know that it starts people thinking about how to change the world.

With girls, there's an insecurity that starts early on. It hangs around them, like some annoying kid from down the block who won't take the hint and go home when dinnertime comes. And moms are usually not great at giving their daughters confidence.

It's not really an original idea, but there's something that goes along with power and celebrity that starts to make you feel like you're impervious to certain forces that the rest of us have to live with.

It's a great thing that the United States has given the rest of the world - no other country has given such great popular music to the Far East and Europe. When I play those great countries, a lot of times, the audience starts singing the songs with me. They know them. They love them.

Advocating for yourself in the context of friendship starts with choosing the right people to be part of your inner circle.

The first step in changing a culture, I believe, starts with the senior leadership team - and with the CEO.

The world is starving for original and decisive leadership.

There's no doubt that the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party. And there's been a melding in their goals when it comes to the separation of church and state. I've always believed in the separation of church and state.

If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to have fostered one.

In the early days of the republic, the secretary of state was the heir apparent to the president. Presidents could easily hand-pick their party's next candidate. The party caucuses formally selected the candidates, but presidents guided the process.

I feel connected to my generation through the music, but I also fear for us. We're in a very self-destructive state where we're addicted to outside opinions and we all feel like we have fans.

Every cook has to learn how to govern the state.

The kind of thing I'm good at is knowing every politician in the state and remembering where he itches. And I know where to scratch him.

I have to tell you, my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, her mother, 'So what's the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State.' Most of her lifetime, it's true. But at the time it really was a big deal.