Bob Greene Quotes

When I met Miller, for me it wasn't a question of wanting to meet him because it was Arthur Miller; it was a kind of astonishment that I could meet someone who was so deeply embedded in the psyche of my artistic development.

The one artist who actually had influence over me was Bo Bartlett.

That's what great art does - it inspires other artists to do great art, and that's what it should do.

It's a kind of honour when I see how many people are imitating the style of how I make films.

I really hesitate to say that any of my shows influenced other writers.

In France, in Europe, the young artists of any generation always act as grandsons of some great man - Poussin, for example, or Victor Hugo. They can't help it. Even if they don't believe in that, it gets in their system. And so when they come to produce something of their own, the tradition is nearly indestructible.

As Richard Pryor was to Eddie Murphy, that's what Kurt Vonnegut was to me.

If only one in 1,000 people that I talk to goes on to write a good book, that's one more good book that I've helped along... and maybe it will be a book I love myself five or 10 years down the line.

The fact is that all writers create their precursors. Their work modifies our conception of the past, just as it is bound to modify the future.

The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative.

Crumb was such an influence on me. He's such a visionary, such a great artist, that he so shaped my artistic sensibilities on a certain level that I do owe everything to him. The way I see the world is largely changed by him.

Great art inspires great art.

When someone pursues music through your music, that's the greatest accolade anybody can get.

I'm not sure there's a difference between books that affected the way I see the world and books that influenced me as a writer.

The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape - affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark.

We think it's a blessing that we were able to bring our music to the world. That our music has not only inspired our communities but other communities. That's one of the greatest things an artist in any field could know: that you've touched the mind of another artist.

[I want to be] Something that really touched you - and as far as image and change goes, I just really want a lot of people to respect my music and treat me... [as] inspiration.

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was of us, Burns, Shelley, were with us. They watch from their graves!

This sounds corny, but I once told a kid when I was in a the library conference, the best - not the best, what I really hope for is that someday 20, 30 years from now, some kid, 12-year-old, 15-year-old, in Des Moines will be going through the stacks, if they have stacks anymore - they probably won't - and find a book of mine and get something from it.

Always, with any movie that I do, I have a book of ideas that I've heard, or seen, or whatever, and I always try to incorporate it in the film.

The great thing is anytime you see an artist that has a piece of what I've already done, you can see it from afar. 'He's doing that lil' hammer right there' - whether it's the energy, the swag or the look - it's a blessing.

If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one.

Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.

I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read.

Literature usually begets literature.