Top 128 Quotes & Sayings by Lin-Manuel Miranda - Page 2

I'm the music guy, I get to wear the music hat, but being able to be that guy in the room is a thrill at this level and caliber.

You know, you're doing the same show every day, and your inspiration, you have to look no further than the fact that you know people travel across the country to see you. In a lot of cases, this is that audience's only chance to see the thing, and so, that's what gets you up in the morning, and that's what gets you giving your best performance on stage, is the awareness that this audience is ready for it, and here to have an experience, and so in turn are you.

I got to fall in love. I got to win a war. I got to write words that inspired a nation.

Don't be shocked when your history book mentions me.

I just remembered when I was an adolescent girl wanting to leave my island and find my calling.

I have two wonderful, supportive and very practical parents who were like, you're really talented and really creative. You should be a lawyer because there's a safe path there. And I knew that I was never going to be a lawyer. And I knew that I wanted to make movies, and I wanted to write shows.

No one wants to hear me crooning a ballad.

I feel like style is like accent. You don't hear it on yourself, and then everyone's like, man, you got a strong accent.

I read reviews, I'm not going to lie to y'all. Like you know, I'll read 'em, but then, the next day I'm able to sort of shrug them off. But if something sort of sticks the next day, there's probably something to it. I just sort of really try to trust my gut on, on all that stuff.

My sister is as responsible for anyone for giving me good taste in music.

I probably shouldn't brag, but dag I amaze and astonish.

I remind myself Vincent van Gogh died without having sold a single painting. Like, art is not measured by the trappings that people attached to it. It's the thing itself, and so, as you know, it's been a dream of mine to write songs for Disney, and so, it's really exciting to finally hear. It's two and a half years.

I still look at that water, and I look at Moana's hair, and I'm just like, "How is this even happening?" It's such an incredible mix of technical mastery and wizardry. It's really incredible. It's layers and layers and layers. It's not unlike building a musical. It's really pretty cool.

Sebastian, en Español, is a bad ass name.

I liked writing the negative ads more than - because it's more minor chords.

I had the good fortune of being 9 years old when The Little Mermaid came out, that whole run of really beautiful Disney musicals, and so, the fact that I got to interview with Ron [Clements] and John [Musker], who directed The Little Mermaid, I was, like, I just walked in and said, "You're the reason I'm even here."

Once George Washington said, "I have to step down the so the country can move on."

I think I started writing because no one had ever told me you can write about the things you know in a musical. They don't have to come from some far off place.

I think every writer's had the experience of having a really good idea, waiting to write it, and then once you write it, you're like, "Oh I kind of got past the sell by date on this." I'm not connected to the initial spark that was the idea. A lot of that's about staying open.

It's got to feel, the pulse has to feel like this part of the world, the instrumentation has to be true to that, and so, between him, [composer] Mark Mancina and myself, we really chased that, while serving our story Moana].

When you're dealing with a constant rhythm, no matter how great your lyrics are, if you don't switch it up, people's heads are going to start bobbing. And they're going to stop listening to what you're saying, so consistently keep the ear fresh and keep the audience surprised.

Ed Koch once said that New York City is where immigrants come to audition for America. That's what happened to my parents; that's what happened to me.

The reason I make that distinction cassette before CD is you have to listen to it in the order in which I've curated it for you. You know, side A to side B is our act break.

I 've got this weird day that changed my life. I woke up one Wednesday, and my wife's a lawyer, she was off to get on a plane, to go to a business meeting somewhere else, and she said, "I think you might be a father. I have to go to the airport." It was like, six in the morning, and I was like, "That's great - what?!" I called her at noon once her flight landed, to confirm that I hadn't dreamt the thing she told me.

With every word, I drop knowledge. I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal trying to reach my goal.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, I didn't do any press, I didn't do any meetings, I just wrote all day, 'cause I'd meet, via Skype, with the creative team, at five p.m., and then I would have my seven o'clock curtain.

If you know the voice you're writing for it's such a shortcut. It's such a catalyst to creating the kind of energy you want.

Well, hello. My name is Lin. But if you're dyslexic, call me Nil.

I am not throwing away my shot.

The biggest secret weapon we had in regards to really being true to this part of the world, and making sure this part of the world could see themselves in this film [Moana] in a way that felt positive and accurate, was Opetaia, my co-writer, Opetaia Foa'i, who has a great band called Te Vaka and is an amazing musical and cultural ambassador.

With every word, I drop knowledge.

I felt so nourished by the process of making [Moana], of you're always engaged with other artists from different disciplines, and it's about bringing your art form to the table. It's so many art forms mashed together.

I think I learned more about writing scores for Broadway by making mix tapes in the '90s than I did in college. You're learning about rise and fall and energy and tempo shifts. You're showing off your taste and your references. You're trying to be witty by - through placement of music you didn't write.

I want as many people to see the show [Hamilton] in its musical theater form as possible before it's translated, and whether it's a good act of translation or a bad act of translation, it's a leap, and very few stage shows manage the leap successfully.

It's an enormous relief to go to work and be an actor and not be worried about writing.

My rhymes are gonna kill, so I suggest you write your will and leave your [expletive] to me.

I think, there are a couple of songs. I'm really proud of How far I'll Go. I literally locked myself up in my childhood bedroom at my parents' house to write those lyrics. I wanted to get to my angstiest possible place. So I went method on that.

I will lay down my life if it sets us free.

I'm not going to hang out with celebrities, I'm not going to parties. I have two songs due for Moana next week, and I'm going to go and spend some time with Maui and Moana in the ocean, in my mind.

I wouldn't give a performer something I couldn't deliver myself.

The fact that I'm a performer helps me enormously as a lyricist.

[Opetaia Foa'i] brought in the melody and the lyrics, but the lyrics were in Tokelauan, and so, we talked about what it could mean and whether this could be the ancestor song. So, I started writing English lyrics to sort of the same melody.

I am the epitome of coolness.

The problem is I got a lot of brains but no polish.

I was one of several songwriters I think interviewed [for Moana]. I'm a huge fan of Disney animated movies, and I've always wanted to write an animated score since I was a little kid.

Lamplighters are the guys who manually turned on all the street lamps in London and turned them off. That was the gig in the 1930s in London.

I'm just like my country. I'm young, scrappy and hungry.

I know the action in the street is excitin' But Jesus, between all the bleedin’ ‘n fightin’ I’ve been readin’ ‘n writin’.

My power of speech, unimpeachable. Only 19 but my mind is older.

These New York City streets get colder, I shoulder every burden every disadvantage I've learned to manage. I don't have a gun to brandish. I walk these streets famished.

I'm not trying to make something that is difficult to perform every night. It needs to proceed at the speed of that character's thought because that's the only way it's actable.

People who don't like musicals like, 'why are they singing? Why aren't they just talking? If you make the lyric feel really conversational, it's much easier for them to bridge that gap.

It was a real dream come true just to get the job [in Moana], and yeah, and we sort of got right to work.

I grew up in the time just when cassettes were waning and CDs were growing. And so mix tapes - and not mix CDs - mix tapes were an important part of the friendship and mating rituals of New York adolescents. If you were a girl and I wanted you - to show you I like you, I would make you a 90-minute cassette wherein I would show off my tastes. I would play you a musical theater song next to a hip-hop song next to an oldie next to some pop song you maybe never heard, also subliminally telling you how much I like you with all these songs.

We get the job done. So what happens if we win?

I loved musicals. I loved being in the school play and being lucky enough to get parts in the school play. But they always took place in some other time and place.

I got the job [in Moana project] about six months before we started rehearsals. No, seven and a half months before we started at the Public, and so, it's been my ocean of calm throughout the Hamilton phenomenon.

I got to holler just to be heard.

I have been working on this movie [Moana] since before Hamilton happened.

If you think in terms of topping, you're in the wrong business. You can't think that way.