Quotes About Inspiration

It's a weird thing when you make records. You try to hear it before you make it, so you walk into the studio with this idea of what you expect to happen, and that usually changes. That usually turns into something else, and that's a good thing.

I think that role model is kind of a weird thing because obviously you are, but I try to make good choices and good decisions for myself for me to have a good life. If that inspires someone else, that is great, but I think you should do good for yourself and your own happiness.

For me, books were my source of affirmation. Alice Walker, Audrey Lord - it was these authors who wrote about their experiences. It was this weird thing where I was censored in terms of what I could watch but not in terms of what I could read.

Nothing is a calling card. Everything is what you do. If you do it in order to get somewhere else, you're not actually doing it. If you're thinking, 'What is the weird thing I want to make with my friends?' money and other things will come later.

I do this weird thing in studios where I climb stuff when I get nervous.

I never really watched much stand-up growing up. I just was not really that into it. But I can say I honestly fell in love with it the second I touched the microphone. It was like this weird thing where it's like, 'Oh, yeah, this is what I'm supposed to do.'

We're fans of stuff like Maiden, but I think we generally get it from weirder places. For me, the Eagles' 'Hotel California' represents one of the most brilliant harmony approaches to music. Boston did it very well, too.

Something will pop up in my head. It could be like the weirdest thing. Like all'a sudden like I have like a jumping banana in my head.

I write in the weirdest places. I wrote 'Girl on the Coast' in my car with the kids in the back and Eric driving. I just wrote the whole thing on my phone. I just typed out the lyrics.

When I'm writing, it's the weirdest thing: it's not even a conscious process. I'm not even thinking when I write, and then all of a sudden, I'll have a song that makes me feel so much better than I did before.

I think people do their bravest work when given an elusive canvas. That would be seemingly the weirdest, but also the most wonderful.

I have the weirdest career in hip-hop, and I say that because I started so young. I started So So Def when I was 17 years old.

I love making videos for my music, you can literally do anything. It's like you can write a song about anything; you can also write a video that is the weirdest thing you can relate to the song, and I find that quite cool.

I think performing has been the weirdest realization, because for the longest time I thought that no one was listening to my music. Now seeing people let it affect them emotionally and put it into their own lives is the coolest feeling.

I think our team kind of strives on weirdness sometimes. We have that 'rah-rah, rally' sort of American mentality that we can all kind of get around.

Just being out in the world, you see so many things, and every day, you experience so many concepts and different people and their coolness and weirdness. It's a feast of ideas.

Growing up as a product of the black civil-rights movement, I had a lot of different models for black weirdness, whether it's Richard Pryor or James Baldwin or Jimmy Walker.

Bunsen' is one of the best things I've been able to do. I'm so excited about it. Not only because of the awesome characters, but because of the incredible writing our team is doing. I think it combines the best traits of all my previous stuff and even adds a bit of extra weirdness here and there too.

We try not to think, 'right, we need someone who is a weirdo, someone who is competitive.' We definitely want five very different brains, but it normally starts with one person. For example, with series five, we asked Bob Mortimer because he is one of my absolute heroes and we sort of built it around him.

'Taxi Driver' was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I didn't become a weirdo and squawk like a chicken.

It's incredible to have people come up to you and tell you that you changed their life when their life was really, really dark. That you brought some light in. You also learn that it's OK to be a weirdo and not follow the rules.

I think I do myself a disservice by comparing myself to Steve Jobs and Walt Disney and human beings that we've seen before. It should be more like Willy Wonka... and welcome to my chocolate factory.

Oh my God, Guns N' Roses - it's like, jeez, that's what made me move out to Los Angeles. 'Welcome to the Jungle,' you know - it's been a huge inspiration for me.

I want you to hear a new version of Dueling Banjos. Anyone else is welcome.