When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much, I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.

“Until the 1800s, most people from the Middle East to the Western World believed what the Bible records about creation and the global Flood. The secular idea of millions of years did not gain extensive popularity until the 1830s, under the influence of a man named Charles Lyell — who opposed a global Flood!”

The most 'authoritative' accounts of a historical Jesus come from the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not come into the Bible as original and authoritative from the authors themselves, but rather from the influence of early church fathers, especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the middle of the second century. Many heretical gospels existed by that time, but Irenaeus considered only some of them for mystical reasons. He claimed only four in number; according to Romer, 'like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures-- the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John.

“We've all got lots of different influences. We never sit down to write a song and say, 'This is going to be a Brian Eno type of song,' or 'This is a Bob Dylan song.' It's totally little bits of lots of different stuff that come together and hopefully it's something coming out of us that we're creating.”

“Diane Arbus changed the face of photography with her powerful and moving photographs which captured 1950s and 1960s America. She has had a profound influence on photographers ever since and on the way we look at our fellow human beings. This is a long overdue retrospective which shows her work is as compelling as ever.”

“Everybody brings something to the table, and we don't pretend not to have other influences, ... For instance, with the big title track -- which I'm very proud of and think is one of Dream Theater's best compositions -- I dug pretty deep into my background in Genesis and Yes and wanted to bring some of those flavors forward.”

“Gladstone, at the end of the 19th century, said that the task of the priest had become much more difficult than it had ever been. Today it has worsened rather than improved, in a Church that is divided and in a culture where God has been pushed out of many lives and is not given the opportunity to influence scores of others.”

“I didn't have as much influence as everyone thinks. Brandon's success is a product of Bobby Freund. I'm only along for the ride and did what I could. I told Brandon what to look for and what to focus on, and he did a good job staying focused on taking care of one match at a time.”

“Our young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which not only adds to the national honor but uplifts a nation and develops patriotism and courage. That is all true. But it is only fair, too, to let them know that the garments of the deity are filthy and that some of her influences debase and befoul a people.”

“While habits tend to be stable over time, barriers to change in the category are actually very low. It takes very little to get people to try a new restaurant or new food, particularly when prompted by social influences. Likewise, it takes very little for them to reject foods or outlets because of health concerns.”