Lin-Manuel Miranda Quotes

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.

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.

I think if you want to make a recipe for making a writer, have them feel a little out of place everywhere, have them be an observer kind of all the time. And that's a great way to make a writer.

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.

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

The people you're turning to for advice are all people making Disney movies, so we had these amazing meetings where you'd see John Lasseter, and then next to him is Jen Lee, the director of Frozen. Next to her is Pete Docter, who's working on Inside Out.

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."

I try to let my decisions be guided not by what I think will succeed or fail, but what I'm going to learn from that process.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I've had a little Hollywood experience, and there's nothing like the Disney story experience.

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

I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal trying to reach my goal.

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.

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

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.

I am not throwing away my shot.

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.

Sebastian, en Español, is a bad ass name.

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.

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 got the job [in Moana], and the next day I was on a plane to New Zealand, where the rest of the team was already doing research, and meeting with different choirs, and sort of really soaking up the music, the musical world of, the musical heritage of this part of the world.

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'm just like my country, I'm young, scrappy and hungry, and I'm not throwing away my shot.

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'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.

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].

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.