Dying before dying has two important consequences: It liberates the individual from the fear of death and influences the actual experience of dying at the time of biological demise.

Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.

My folks have played everything from rock disco pop funk and blues. My dad has always brought and played different genres like jazz classical and Latin. With all this in my pocket I feel I have a taste of everything for my influences.

The people on my mum's side of the family are atheist intellectuals who are ueber-proper. My dad's side of the family are missionaries who are more comfortable sitting around in sweatpants than they are in a five-star restaurant. But those two influences converged in my life.

If you met my dad I think a lot of things would be put to rest. Because my pops is a pretty silly guy. But Coldcut they're based in the U.K. I'm a big fan of jazz music so American music has had a big influence on what I listen to.

My dad's Irish music was such a huge influence.

Comedy was why I got into acting the first place. Peter Sellers was a huge influence on my wanting to act. I grew up with him and found him hysterical. The Pink Panther films were an inspiration from my earliest childhood days when I was watching them with my brother and my dad.

My dad has been a big influence on me because he's always had his own business. He really taught me business sense and how to be a focused individual but also how to have fun and make everyone around you have fun.

My mum was raised Jewish my dad is very scientifically minded and my school was vaguely Christian. We sang hymns in school. I liked the hymns bit but apart from that I can take it or leave it. So I had lots of different influences when I was younger.

My dad's gay experiences really had a very positive influence on me and my straight relationships - how to better accept all the weirdness and ambiguity and ups and downs and paradoxes. I knew from the beginning I was writing about love.

I listened to the radio so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.

I do love a bit of fashion. I grew up around a lot of it as my mum and dad had clothing stores so my mum was always designing a lot and I definitely had that as an influence.

My dad was the biggest influence on my life because he was never boring.

My dad used to say 'Just because you dress up in a coat and tie it doesn't influence your intelligence.'

The most important influence in my childhood was my father.

Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears.

One of the great bands we opened up for was Priest back in '89. That was really great because at that time we had never met them never toured with them before. They were a big influence on Slayer so to open up for them was really cool.

Punk's influence on music movies art design and fashion is no longer in doubt. It is used as the measurement for what is cool.

I influenced the BG style by not being able to draw perspective. The BG artists developed cool graphic painting styles to make my bad backgrounds look like they were that way on purpose.

New York had a big influence on me growing up and I was really part of the club scene - the Mudd Club and Studio 54. When you're living in New York you are just bombarded with style trying to figure out how to be cool and how to feel relaxed at the same time.

We know that communication must be hampered and its form largely determined by the unconscious but inevitable influence of a transmitting mechanism whether that be of a merely mechanical or of a physiological character.

The eventual place the American army should take on the western front was to a large extent influenced by the vital question of communication and supply.

It is difficult to imagine how any behavior in the presence of another person can avoid being a communication of one's own view of the nature of one's relationship with that person and how it can fail to influence that person.

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.