Quotes About Inspiration

I tried to write about my first marriage in a fictional version but got two pages into it and realised it was too personal. Then I came up with an old-fashioned love triangle, which became the plot for 'Ralph's Party.'

One of the first albums I can remember hearing was a Supertramp best of, with mostly 'Breakfast in America' songs on it. It's kind of the same thing as the Flaming Lips, where there are these really melancholy lyrics and melodies, yet it's extremely uplifting. They're like a nonfuturistic version of the Flaming Lips.

The beautiful despair is never fruitless. It keeps you going. Like when I first heard Bob Dylan do 'Things Have Changed,' or any time I see any work of art really beautifully done, like Michelangelo's 'The David' or that movie 'Lost in Translation' - it inspires me to try and find my own version of that.

I think the greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves.

I'm less shy now than I was as a kid. After Flight 1549, my family and I had to become public figures and more complete versions of ourselves. I had to teach myself to become an effective public speaker.

My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that - so I've tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the '60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson's songs.

We see the worst versions of ourselves - things we did or could have done - in the characters who inspire us.

I started singing when I was three - my mother would teach me some versions of 'Thirupugazh.' And I loved being on stage.

I often look at places and kind of mentally convert them to fantasy versions of themselves.

When one person does something that works, everyone else wants to do it. So it didn't surprise me at all to see people come with different versions of 'American Idol' and a lot of them are exactly the same but with different twists.

'Teenage Dream' was the most difficult song I've ever been a part of. We wrote five different versions of it. We couldn't get the lyrics right. Max Martin and Dr. Luke wrote most of the melody, and then Katy Perry and I were responsible for getting the lyrics right.

A lot of my characters are born out of a small grain in a person that I heighten and take to that next level. They're not based on anyone I've ever met, but they are these extreme versions of something.

I definitely have been very mindful of what kind of leader and creator I want to be. A lot of that has to with looking at the writers that you work with. They're all like your children. They all need love, but different versions of it.

There are so many versions of Batman that I love so much from different artists that I had to almost stop trying to draw those versions and get past that and just draw the Jeff Lemire version of Batman eventually.

I go online, and I love watching heavy metal bands and guitar players play heavy metal versions of the 'Zelda' theme, and people do all the 'Zelda' music, which is one of my favorite soundtracks.

I've always loved that, on all the Dylan and Springsteen and Marley and Neil Young reissues that they've done: It's so cool to hear alternate versions and how the song started in their mind.

I don't have a huge amount of gear, but on the software side, I have a number of plug-in chains that act as abstracted versions of real instruments.

I can't define it, but being in a relationship certainly helps individuals become better versions of themselves.

A lot of times, that's hard to capture: what you sound like in person versus what you sound like on record. If I had total control, I would do a lot of the old songs - not only my songs but Sam Cooke songs, Luther Vandross, melody songs. That's what I would really do if I had an opportunity to do a record.

I'm always looking to rock out. But it isn't really about rocking out versus being mellow, in terms of your personal satisfaction. In the end, you just want to be good. When you look at something that's really good, it might be Iggy Pop or it might be Leonard Cohen. Whatever it is, you want it to be really good.

I like to think that my works flow like music. That may be one reason I work in large groups versus one picture of one thing; it's the flow of the whole series that counts.

I didn't have a whole lot of role models to say, 'This much is possible, versus this much.' So I finally said, 'I think I'd like to be a mayor. I'd like to pull together a city and help do good things.'

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.

The martial arts that I got into was because of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, because of all of the animal styles at the time. It was around about the time when Jackie was doing 'Drunken Master,' and, like, Snake versus this and that.