I think most serious writers, certainly in the modern period, use their own lives or the lives of people close to them or lives they have heard about as the raw material for their creativity.
Chaim Potok

In South America, I heard the 8th Symphony of Beethoven. And the young conductor thought, Beethoven must be heroic. But this is piece which shouldn't be heroic. And this was such a misunderstanding, such a deep misunderstanding.
Kurt Masur

One day I heard a speech of Hitler. In this speech he said that the German factory worker and the German labourer must make common cause with the German intellectual worker.
Fritz Sauckel

I have heard of novels started in the middle, at the end, written in patches to be joined together later, but I have never felt the slightest desire to do this.
C. S. Forester

Bud Johnson, God rest his soul of fame, a tenor saxophonist. Bud was always a big, big, big booster of mine and he always when I first met Bud in Pittsburgh when he came through there, he heard me sing and he wanted me to come to Chicago.
Billy Eckstine

Once you have heard a strange audience burst into laughter at a film you directed, you realize what the word joy is all about.
Chuck Jones

No one has really heard my side of the story, the adventure we had together, the transformation that I had going from a schoolgirl to a woman overnight.
Priscilla Presley

As we have heard, the end of al-Zarqawi is a significant blow to al-Qaida operations in Iraq. It is another clear indication of the progress we are making.
Kit Bond

I was this person with this weird last name from New York that no one had ever heard of. But my screen test I guess, according to him, was the best. So I got the part, which was incredible.
Mary Steenburgen

I heard that in the United States the level of baseball was the highest in the world. So it was only natural that I would want to go there, as a baseball player.
Ichiro Suzuki

I spent, as you know, a year and a half in a clergyman's family and heard almost every Tuesday the very best, most earnest and most impressive preacher it has ever been my fortune to meet with, but it produced no effect whatever on my mind.
Alfred Russel Wallace

But because it was able to balance that kind of humor with a sweet story and characters you really rooted for and also got across the girls' point of view, I've heard nothing but great things from younger and older females as well.
Jason Biggs

Another night I dreamed I heard heavenly music sounding in my ears, and a flock of sheep was gathering round it. When the music ceased, the sheep leaped for joy, and ran together, shaking their heads; and one shook his head almost off, and seemed to have nothing but ears.
Joanna Southcott

I did a couple songs with this hip-hop guy named Tim Dark. He was working in the same studio I've been working in, he heard my music and he said, aw man, I've got to do something with you.
Alan Vega

Well when I was young, when I was very young, when I was a little boy I don't remember the music I heard, but there was an article in the Brooklyn Daily written by my Aunt about how I could choose phonograph records.
Elliott Carter

This is an album of songs that I've always loved, tunes that I heard. For the first time in 53 years of recording, I really had control over an entire album, start to finish.
Etta James

I can't imagine a more fulfilling thing for a writer than that you've made a strong impact on the lives of other people. Just because I've heard it before does not mean I don't want to hear it one more time.
Armistead Maupin

I have heard Science Fiction and Fantasy referred to as the fiction of ideas, and I like that definition, but it's the mainstream public that chooses my books for the most part.
Jean M. Auel

I had read the novel and I had heard David Lean was going to direct it - and it came as a surprise to me because American actors, if given the chance, can do style as well as anybody and speak as well as anybody.
Rod Steiger

Mostly this problem is contained in the fact that the US makes it so difficult for Canadians to get green cards (you heard it here), but if an American orchestra really wants a player, they have their ways.
Lara St. John