Quotes About Inspiration

I started with Sam Cooke when I was 6 or 7 years old.

The first time I heard Sam Cooke was in the 'Malcom X' film. I was with my father, and that's the first time I heard his song. I remember my father telling me the story of Sam Cooke.

Sam Shepard is - I didn't tell this to Sammy, but if I had to point to one artist that made me want to do this for my life, it's Sam Shepard.

Find like-minded people who are on the same page as you, and then lift each other up.

I know all the girls; we all have something to play for, we all have this goal, and we're all on the same page as to what we want at the end of the day. But as for me, I have something a little bit more to play for, and that's my kid.

I remember watching Argentina beat the U.S. in 2004 and I think maybe the same story that Argentina wrote with the 'Gold Generation,' we can write, too.

I'm writing, and just doing the same thing I always do.

I was trying to do the same thing that I always do which is make an interesting record.

You can't plan to write a great song. It just happens to you. It drops in your lap. It's the same thing with a woman.

If you do the same thing every night, that's the death of music.

Without Merlin, there would be no Gandalf, so I see them as the same thing, one a continuation of the other.

Running is very rhythmic, and I have written a lot of lyrics while out running. It's a very musical exercise, and sometimes I like to sing when I run. Your whole body is doing the same thing.

Mostly, theater becomes blander and blander as everyone wants the same thing they saw before. The good plays are the ones that don't allow you to do that.

Honestly, 'Side A' is supposed to be a project just from my heart and whatever is happening in my heart at the time, and I want 'Side B' to also fit that same thing.

Whenever you work with someone who you idolize, you realize... he's just a person trying to make a movie as best he knows how. And that doesn't look so different from other people trying to do the same thing.

If you're making a film, you've got to have one eye to the audience and one eye to what excites you about it, and sometimes it's not the same thing.

I am a day dreamer. I visualise a lot of things at the same time.

I don't sample. I'm not like one of these guys who concoct some beat on my sampler and just turns it in.

I've always, in some way, incorporated sampling into my work.

I love sampling, and RZA loves sampling, too.

I used to hate sampling, but it was basically because everyone was getting paid but us. But when they began to do the legislation and get it right, I realized that the kids just did something that, if maybe we were smart enough, we would have done it as well.

I think if I wanted to get to a point where I could actually grow in my music, I had to almost step away from sampling so much and start making the kind of music that people wanted to sample.

I would love to do a biopic based on Aung San Suu Kyi's life.

At the movies, when I see Sandra Bullock or Winona Ryder, I think, 'I can do that!'