Quotes About Inspiration

I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoon in 1920. Of course, they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet things.

As a kid, even I knew everything about my favourite cricketers. I used to know everything possible. Now I see kids knowing about me. It feels good.

I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture.

My dad used to have an expression - 'It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.'

Mike Tyson was one of the fighters who motivated me. How? We both used to train at the Golden Gloves boxing gym. I used to see his Rolls-Royce, his diamond Rolex on, and I said, 'You know what? Those are the things that I want.'

Rock n' Roll came from the slaves singing gospel in the fields. Their lives were hell and they used music to lift out of it, to take them away. That's what rock n' roll should do - take you to a better place.

I just had that mindset to never settle. That's a credit to my pops, too. He used to say 'the sky's the limit' every time we talked.

Everybody was always telling me to rap and freestyle. I used to go to the park and spit on the mic. If I go to the park, they always gonna give me the mic.

When I was a child, I used to paint intently. The older I become, and the closer death approaches, the brighter my life gets day by day.

I used to think that all great recordings happened at about 3 A.M.

I used to trade stocks online, and I kind of felt gross, like, all I'm doing is making money off other people's creativity, and I'm not creating anything myself.

I'm a big fan of old, classic American musclecars like a Shelby GT or the '69 Dodge Charger, cars that inspired me through my childhood. They used to get me real excited when I was a kid. To own one and actually be able to drive them in America is a little of a dream.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you're a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you're casually talking to says something that makes you so mad - you can create an entire scenario around that.

The anti-apartheid prisoners on the island, like so many in every age and nation, found that Shakespeare had a peculiar ability to gentle their condition. They used to gather clandestinely to read the plays; on one occasion, the book was passed around for each man to mark his favourite lines.

When I was in school with my friends and stuff, you always used to put yourself in the situation of footballers of the time and pretend to be them.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn't poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

I used to love, love Steve Martin. I still do... I would get these albums, and I would just listen to them all the time. I would stand in my room and pretend that I was delivering his comedy routine... And I don't know if that planted any kind of seed, but I wasn't raised going to the theatre.

One of the things I miss most is that I can no longer read, due to age-related macular degeneration. I get regular injections for this, and thankfully these seem to have arrested its progress, but it's still very difficult for me to read. That means it is hard for me to pick up my Bible and read it like I used to, and I miss that very much.

At those times I got into... I suppose you call it a rut. I used to do comedy, comedy, comedy and I suddenly thought I ought to break away from this somehow.

Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, I was a college football junkie. My mom attended the University of Iowa and so I can remember I used to run around the backyard in a number 6, Tim Dwight Iowa jersey when I was very little.

I used to do most of my composing at a little table in a cafe. Composing for 52 instruments, I had to figure out how to accommodate myself to the small table.

I'm into Incubus. Growing up, I was a huge Taking Back Sunday fan. I'm still a fan, but I don't listen as much as I used to. When I was 13 or 14, I started getting into emo-pop-rock, so that influenced me. I also love Drake... I have a pretty diverse collection.

I used to record songs, like, play the beat from one phone and have another phone recording me and just rap. Moving from that to a studio was like, 'Damn, I never knew I could sound like this.' It was just magic.

My maternal granddad, Leonard, was full of amazing stories. He was an orphan, with 11 or 12 brothers and sisters, and he used to tell us about growing up near the Irrawaddy river and how one brother was eaten by a crocodile.