Quotes About Influence

My mother told me, if you call yourself 'Little' Stevie Wonder, you'd better be as good as Little Willie John.

In France it was Joan of Arc; in the Crimea it was Florence Nightingale; in the deep south there was Rosa Parks; in India there was Mother Teresa and in Florida there was Katherine Harris.

My mother spoke of Christ to my father, by her feminine and childlike virtues, and, after having borne his violence without a murmur or complaint, gained him at the close of his life to Christ.

My mother has never approved of high heels. As a result, I have never been able to walk in high heels - and they were all I ever wanted. So of course, my daughter has two pairs.

My first introduction to African music was by my mother, who bought the 'Pata Pata' album by the great Miriam Makeba when it came out. Now that is an album. What a voice.

When I was twelve, the biggest name in Rock and Roll was Elvis Presley. I bought an EP, "King Creole". I hid it in the basement, but my mother found it.

Growing up in Cleveland, I learned about singing from my mother, who had once sung professionally and who admired Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin.

Yes. My mother was and still is a Folk Singer. She was very involved in the political movements for Unions and Civil rights. She sang with Pete Seeger among others. My father was an Actor.

My mother taught me something at a young age - she said 'you are the company you keep.' To define yourself by some label or some level of resources - that's pretty shallow.

My mother was a Sunday school teacher. So I am a byproduct of prayer. My mom just kept on praying for her son.

I didn't fully realize it at the time, but the goal of my life was profoundly molded by this experience - to help produce, in the next generation, more Mother Teresas and less Hitlers.

My father was a schoolteacher and my mother came from a teacher's family.

You know, I put my little brother in the movies and he's still in the pictures. My mother makes me put him in the pictures.

I would never have gone anywhere if it hadn't been for Mother's faith and support.

My mother was sarcastic and delightful and, trust me, quite remarkable.

My mother was a terrific force in my life. Wartime-generation woman, hadn't gone to university but should have done. Was very funny, very verbal, very clever, very witty.

Dad was the first man I fell in love with. He was a very funny man. He grew up in the East End of London and was very dynamic, and I understood why my mother fell in love with him.

My mother studied English and drama at the University of Pennsylvania, where my father studied architecture. She was a great influence in all sorts of ways, a wicked wit.

There is no greater name for a leader than mother or father. There is no leadership more important than parenthood.

You know, my mother's beautiful, my dad was a really handsome man, and there was a lot of talk about looks when I was growing up.

[on Queen Mother] Our country is the richer for her life and the poorer at her death.

My mother's whole family had been from the theater, really. Because I grew up in Hollywood, I wasn't that interested in Hollywood. But the New York theater was completely exotic and fabulous to me.

I was raised with Eddie Fisher as a father and Connie Stevens as a mother. It was sort of hard for me to pick anything else, because this was the life I knew.

I would have to say that my mother's entrepreneurial perspective, and that of her father's, are very evident in my own outlook.