Influential people are never satisfied with the status quo. They're the ones who constantly ask, 'What if?' and 'Why not?' They're not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, and they don't disrupt things for the sake of being disruptive; they do it to make things better.

My parents were not affluent people and were not - didn't come from the extremities of education. My mother had a high school diploma. I often think I so wish she'd come out of the hills in Appalachia and been able to go on to college. I think she would have made a wonderful teacher.

Though many of the poor have come to see the affluent middle class as its enemy, that class actually stands between the poor and the real powers in this society - the administrative octopus with its head in Washington, the conglomerates, the military complex.

Carl Sagan spoke fluently between biology and geology and astrophysics and physics. If you move fluently across those boundaries, you realize that science is everywhere; science is not something you can step around or sweep under the rug.

But you know, if you live an affluent lifestyle, there are all types of trappings that are there that you have to be cognizant of, and you've got to try and communicate freely and gain understanding about and then keep moving on, because you know, sometimes lifestyles are chosen for us as opposed to us choosing them.

I want to go to college to study journalism. I want to speak French fluently, to travel. My mom was a journalist and it's in my blood.

My mom and dad used to tell me, 'You've got to see this film,' and they were influential to a high degree of the films I saw as a kid.

My mom speaks English - she moved to England in the '70s, so she's fluent in English. We use to speak in Spanish when I was a kid all the time, me and my mom. But when I went to boarding school, I kind of lost it a little bit.

I was brought up bilingual, but there came a point where my mom went back to work and I got a white babysitter, so sadly I lost it. Now I can understand Spanish and put words together, but I don't speak it fluently. I'm ashamed of that.

Christian Science has been enormously influential in our religious history, and the church is very powerful. It has won an extraordinary number of legal battles in this country. It has succeeded in passing a number of what are called 'religious exemption laws.'

It's like learning a language; you can't speak a language fluently until you find out who you are in that language, and that has as much to do with your body as it does with vocabulary and grammar.

We all obviously need others to look up to, and be inspirational to us. Ford did a great job as far as putting the presidency back where it belonged, getting the trust back after Nixon. And President Reagan has been one of the most influential presidents.

Jose Marti, known as 'the Apostle of Cuban Independence,' was an influential poet, journalist, and political theorist who became a symbol for the Cuban people's bid for independence. The concepts of freedom, liberty, and self-determination feature prominently in his work.

I hope for quick, fluent copy and memorable pictures. The words would not 'describe' the pictures; the pictures would not 'illustrate' the words. Together, they would carry a stamp and tell a story.

Ray Bradbury is, for many reasons, the most influential writer in my life. Throughout our long friendship, Ray supplied not only his terrific stories but a grand model of what a writer could be, should be, and yet rarely is: brilliant and charming and accessible, willing to tolerate and to teach, happy to inspire but also to be inspired.

By 1916, as Madam Walker herself was developing more assertive views on race, she was becoming eager to assume her place alongside Harlem's famous, influential and intriguing residents.

The most influential of all educational factors is the conversation in a child's home.

Write out the story - rapidly, fluently, and not too critically - following the second or narrative-order synopsis. Change incidents and plot whenever the developing process seems to suggest such change, never being bound by any previous design.

Given a chance, I would love to host a television show as I have good communication skills and am fluent in Hindi, English and Urdu.

A lot of people influenced me as I was learning, but probably Bing Crosby was the most influential because I would hear his Christmas albums, which my parents played a lot.

To me, the Seventies were very inspirational and very influential... With my whole persona as Snoop Dogg, as a person, as a rapper. I just love the Seventies style, the way all the players dressed nice, you know, kept their hair looking good, drove sharp cars and they talked real slick.

There is a small world of people who are very interested in contemporary art and a slightly bigger world of people who look at contemporary art. But then there is a much larger world that doesn't realise how influential art is on things that they actually look at.

? If you learn to play one sport well, it becomes easier to learn to play another. If you become fluent in one foreign language, you can more easily learn another. If you figure out how to run a small business, it'll be easier to run a second or third one. Do not be envious of those who are good at many things. First learn to be good at one. You will soon be able to do two or three.

It is much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion and unchecked desire.