Believe Quote by Condoleezza Rice

Sam Cooke had a huge influence on me. He left the gospel field at one point and went into the secular, and he had…

— Aretha Franklin

There are a lot of people that impacted me. I remember hearing Oscar Peterson live at the Blue Note, which was very expensive, but...…

— Jon Gordon

I started reading Hunter S. Thompson when I was in college.

— P. J. O'Rourke

My father was a good preacher and had a little bit of drama.

— Jayne Meadows

I went down and spoke to some of the people who lived in the neighborhood in Miami. At the end of the day I…

— Andre Holland

There are a few of the authors that I think have made a great big impact on my life. The way I used to…

— Sandra Cisneros

I think 'Believer' and 'Leland' were such great things to have been a part of, and I learned a lot.

— Ryan Gosling

Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard and Keith Whitley - guys like that were huge influences.

— Sturgill Simpson

In my mid-adolescence, my friend Terry Martin and I became obsessed with William F. Buckley. This makes more sense when you realize that we…

— Malcolm Gladwell

The TED Fellowship exposed me to a set of youngsters who had wilder ideas than I did - and almost all of them were…

— Shaffi Mather

Early influences included Lorrie Moore, Amy Hempel, Charles Baxter, Richard Ford, Alice Munro, Denis Johnson - writers who are important to me still and…

— Laura van den Berg

Growing up on Franklin Road in Nashville, I had everyone from Johnny Cash to Fats Domino swinging by my house to talk with my…

— Hank Williams Jr