Lin-Manuel Miranda quotes:

I always had an eye toward the stage for the story of Hamilton's life, but I began with the idea of a concept album, the way Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Evita' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar' were albums before they were musicals.

The only shows I saw as a kid were that holy trinity: 'Les Miz,' 'Cats,' 'Phantom.'

My only responsibility as a playwright and a storyteller is to give you the time of your life in the theatre. I just happen to think that with Hamilton's story, sticking close to the facts helps me. All the most interesting things in the show happened.

West Wing' was huge. Like 'Hamilton,' it pulls back the curtain on how decision-making happens at the highest level, or at least how you hope it would be. The amount of information Aaron Sorkin packs into a scene gave me this courage to trust the audience to keep up.

I made a movie when I was 15 years old with all my friends. This is when IMDb was a little more lax with its proceedings, so it's listed as one of my projects. I was 15 years old; it's a terrible movie. I wrote 50 percent of it because I wanted to kiss this one girl, and I wrote a kissing scene for it.

We love 'Fiddler.' We love 'West Side Story.' I want to be in that club. I want to be in the club that writes the musical that every high school does.

Biggie and Big Pun were the best storytellers of the '90s. I would get wrapped up in the narrative of what they were talking about.

Pretty much anything William Shatner is in is great. He's great at playing that 'I'm the only one sane in the world' character.

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

One of my first favorite books was 'The 12 Days of Christmas,' and I would just go up to people and say, 'I can sing 'The 12 Days of Christmas,' and I would make them sit through me reciting it, and I'd go all the way, each time. I've always hooked into lyrics.

I like to separate the music- and lyric-writing processes if I can. I'll sort of noodle around on my keyboard and my computer until I have a beat or a chord progression, I'll record it as a loop, export it to iTunes, then walk around with the loop and sort of talk to myself in the loop, and that's how I get the lyrics.

I think I'm always subconsciously trying to write the ideal school play. Lots of parts for everybody, great parts for women - don't forget, more girls try out than boys in the school play; everyone gets to be in the school play.

I only know how to write musicals.

I can't say I have enough experience with Hollywood to feel that I've encountered racism there. I can tell you that I did about five fruitless years of auditioning for voiceovers where I did variations on tacos and Latin accents, and my first screen role was as a bellhop on 'The Sopranos.'

Disney's really incredible on story.

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.

Everyday has the potential to be the greatest day of your life

I am not throwing away my shot.

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

Making words rhyme for a living is one of the great joys of my life... That's a superpower I've been very conscious of developing. I started at the same level as everybody else, and then I just listened to more music and talked to myself until it was an actual superpower I could pull out on special occasions.

You know what's a great way of tricking people into thinking you're a genius? Write a show about geniuses!

The fun for me in collaboration is, one, working with other people just makes you smarter; that's proven.

I kind of need to be ambulatory to write lyrics.

I'm honored to have been chosen as a fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. I am hugely appreciative for the support I have had throughout my life, and I look forward to using the grant to help institutions that have fed my soul and to support new work that inspires me.

[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.

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 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 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.

I got to holler just to be heard.

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.

I had friends who only listened to hip-hop. I had friends who only listened to musicals, and I stood proudly in the middle.

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

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.

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

I know the action in the street is exciting, but Jesus between all the bleeding and fighting I've been reading and writing.

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

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

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 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 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 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 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 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.

I think one of the things that makes theater special is first of all, it's one of the last places you put your phone away. And second of all, it's one of the last places where we all have a common experience together.

I think you balance the things you've been dying to do all your life. And the opportunities that come along, that you didn't maybe think of, that are so amazing, that you'd kick yourself if you didn't try to be a part of them.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

If you're thinking about the idea in the shower. If you're thinking about the idea while you're walking your dog, there's probably something to it.

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

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

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

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'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.

I'm past patiently waitin,' I'm passionately smashin' every expectation, every action's an act of creation.

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.

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

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

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].

It's hard to pick. I mean, I think the one that is most emblematic of the collaboration that occurred is "We Know The Way." That's the first song we wrote for the movie [Moana]. We actually got it written that weekend in New Zealand, so we're all in New Zealand, we're all absorbing this culture, and Opetaia [Foa'i] brought it in.

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

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.

My kid gets me out of bed in the morning.

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

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

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

No one wants to hear me crooning a ballad.

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.

Sebastian, en Español, is a bad ass name.

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.

The distance between where I am and where I want to be seems impossibly large.

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

The music you love when you're a teenager is always going to be the most important to you.

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.

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

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.

The theater should always be a safe space.

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.

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

We sort of quickly realized every rhythm, Opetaia [Foa'i] takes the lead.

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

When I get called in for stuff for Hollywood, I get to be the best friend of the Caucasian leadIf I want to play the main guy, I have found, I have to write it.

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.

With every word, I drop knowledge.

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

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.

You can't control the success or failure of a thing you work on. You can only control the thing you work on.

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.

I came up with the "We are explorers," with sort of a counter-melody to [Opetaia Foa'i] melody. And so, it happened so organically, that it really, to me, is the most emblematic of our collaboration.

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.