What excites me about a lot of the artists I love - and I realize, well, they created their own personal world that I could enter into through their music and through their songwriting. There's people that can do it instrumentally, like Jimi Hendrix or Edge of U2 or Pete Townshend. I didn't have as unique - a purely musical signature. I was a creature of a lot of different influences.
My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well-known blues musicians.
When you play the bars, you pay your dues. It does matter that you know those things [songs]. And the great thing for me, too, is that I draw on that stuff as influences. It's also stuff that you put in the tank that you pull from to make records.
Everyone has their parent's [music] collection which is strongly influences what you listen to as a kid. You have no choice. You have to listen to whatever they're bumpin. I grew up with what they listened to a lot.
In every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.
In the end, I find my influences or inspirations where I can.
Life is yours, do not let life's problems have other influences on what you believe. See for yourself.
I have seen in many places housing which has been developed under government influences, but I have never seen any projects in which governments have played their part which have fountains and statues and grass and trees, which are as important to the concept of the home as the roof itself.
I think that I am profoundly influenced by writers who have explored loss, and longing, and fear. Those influences have turned me into a thriller writer, essentially.
As far as rap goes, I grew up in Hollis, Queens, so early influences were people like Run DMC and LL Cool J.
Neuroplasticity contributes to both the constrained and unconstrained aspects of our nature. It renders our brains not only more resourceful, but also more vulnerable to outside influences.
I know we play a part in the story of progressive music, but for us those influences are the real fathers, the ones that we were interested in.
He who influences the thought of his times, influences all the times that follow. He has made his impress on eternity.
You never know where your influences are going to come from, or where you're going to find your inspiration.
Simultaneous contrast is not just a curious optical phenomenon – it is the very heart of painting. Repeated experiments with adjacent colors will show that any ground subtracts its own hue from the colors which it carries and therefore influences.
As a born-again Christian, I believe God actively and directly influences me to action.
The nineteenth century will ever be known as the one in which the influences of science were first fully realised in civilised communities; the scientific progress was so gigantic that it seems rash to predict that any of its successors can be more important in the life of any nation.
I always wanted to do music that influences and inspires each generation.
Who were my mentors in poetry and literature? This is a matter of opinion. Some see in my books the influences of authors whose names, in my ignorance, I have not even heard, while others see the influences of poets whose names I have heard but whose writings I have not read. And what is my opinion? From whom did I receive nurture? Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk.
Everything I experience influences everything I do.