Quotes About Influence

When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks.

And what great writers actually pass on is not so much their words, but they hand on their breath at their moments of inspiration.

We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us.

it is Simone I want to visit in her cramped grave. To thank her for a single line in The Second Sex that I read in my midtwenties. It rang in my head like a bell, tolling the direction to my future. I paraphrase: In order to create, one must be deeply rooted in society. After reading that line I vowed to elbow my way in, to be heard. I knew women had been pushed to the margins.

If you missed the mouse today, you'll get it tomorrow. You never leave who you are. If you are a writer when writing, you are also a writer when you are cooking, sleeping, walking. And if you are a mother, a painter, a horse, a giraffe, or a carpenter, you will bring that into your writing, too.

In college in the late sixties, I read almost exclusively male writers, usually dead, from England and the rest of Europe. They were very far removed from my daily life, and though I loved them, none of them reflected my experience. I must have subconsciously surmised that writing was not within my ken. It never occurred to me to write, though I secretly wanted to marry a poet.

Writers are great lovers. They fall in love with other writers. That's how they learn to write. They take on a writer, read everything by him or her, read it over again until they understand how the writer moves, pauses, and sees. That's what being a lover is: stepping out of yourself, stepping into someone else's skin.

Nancy Lopez has always been a role model of mine... so to have the opportunity to play for her and spend time with her has been amazing.

Where I live, nobody who's fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies, you may be influenced by it. I think it's so important to preserve your innocence.

Entonces me preocupé: ¿Qué pasa si me estaba volviendo como Ginger? ¿Qué pasa si no podía ser feliz a menos que estuviera con Robbie, como Ginger no podía ser feliz sin Papi?

The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he is a baby.

The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he's a baby.

I was inspired to write this book by those who are sceptical of the power of freedom to change the world.

the wages of empire is myopia

What we normally mean by 'education,' " he once told a crowd of wolf advocates, is, "I want someone else to know what I know so they will have my values." In his experience, it didn't work that way.

I was in a really crummy pop-punk band. I think we did a whole bunch of Blink-182 covers, and we were on the fringe of losers and jocks. So we invited all the cool kids to come watch us play in our bass player's brother's bedroom. And it was terrible, but everyone thought we were so cool.

My dad dragged me to a Bruce Springsteen concert as a kid. It was my first concert, but I fell asleep in the middle. My second concert was Weezer on the 'Pinkerton' tour, and 'Pinkerton' is the reason why I'm doing this.

Hurting people, hurt people.

A button machine makes buttons, no matter what the power used, foot, steam or electricity. They, no matter what the motivating force, death, love or God, made jokes.

Regardless of what we think we're teaching, we teach what we are.

Strong combat leadership is never by committee. Platoon commanders must command, and command in battle isn't based on consensus. It's based on consent. Any leader wields only as much authority and influence as is conferred by the consent of those he leads. The Marines allowed me to be their commander, and they could revoke their permission at any time.

The Past lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.

Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Some man of powerful character to command a person, morally subjected to him, to perform some act. The commanding person suddenly to die; and, for all the rest of his life, the subjected one continues to perform that act.