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" I only know how to write musicals. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Only
Musicals
Know
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" If Hamilton were on Twitter, he would have been a worse oversharer than me. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Been
Me
Than
" Anytime you write something, you go through so many phases. You go through the 'I'm a Fraud' phase. You go through the 'I'll Never Finish' phase. And every once in a while you think, 'What if I actually have created what I set out to create, and it's received as such?' "
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Finish
" '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. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Trust
Courage
Hope
" History is so subjective. The teller of it determines it. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
History
Determines
Subjective
" I grew up in an immigrant neighborhood. We just knew the rule was you're going to have to work twice as hard. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Immigrant
Work
Hard
" Everything we know about Hamilton, we knew when he was alive, because he told us. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Alive
He
Us
" 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. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Great
Life
More
" 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. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Trying
Try
Think
" The only other thing that's like video games for me is watching tennis on TV. I can have it on, and there's a rhythmic quality to it - I can be watching Wimbledon or the U.S. Open and still be working. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Games
I Can
Me
" 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.' "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Racism
Enough
You
" 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. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
More
Friends
Kiss
" What 'Twilight Zone' did was show we all have a great capacity for good and evil. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Great
Evil
Good
" The musicals that leave us kind of staggering on our feet are the ones that really reach for a lot. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Leave
Feet
Kind
" In the best works of fiction, there's no mustache-twirling villain. I try to write shows where even the bad guy's got his reasons. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Write
Villain
Bad
" The only shows I saw as a kid were that holy trinity: 'Les Miz,' 'Cats,' 'Phantom.' "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Only
Trinity
Cats
" If there is a Busta Rhymes of musical theater, it probably is Mandy Patinkin. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Musical Theater
Rhymes
Theater
" You know what's a great way of tricking people into thinking you're a genius? Write a show about geniuses! "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Know
Genius
Great
" 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. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Myself
Music
Like
" 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. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Time
Say
People
" 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. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
My Life
Work
Life
" I kind of need to be ambulatory to write lyrics. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lyrics
Kind
Need
" I couldn't possibly write 'Next to Normal,' but God, I can weep and watch 'Next to Normal' five times. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Next
Watch
Write
" I like the quiet it takes to pursue an idea the way I pursued 'Hamilton,' but I couldn't write a book, because there's no applause at the end of writing a book. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
End
Writing
Way
" The reason 'Hamilton' works is because there is no distance between that story that happened 200-some-odd years ago and now, because it looks like America now. It helps create a connection that wouldn't have been there if it was 20 white guys on stage. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
White
Distance
Create
" Because of the success of 'Hamilton' and 'On Your Feet!' you can't hide behind the old argument of, 'It needs to be bankable, so we can't put all these people of color in the show.' We are bankable. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Success
Color
Feet
" I don't differentiate between black and Latino actors. We're in the same struggle to be represented in a way that's even close to honest. And I can tell you that the amount of Latino characters I can point at and say, 'That's what my life experience looks like' - I can't think of any off the top of my head besides Jimmy Smits in 'Mi Familia.' "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Think
Black
Experience
" What I learned from my go-round with 'In the Heights' is that it's tough to make a movie. In Hollywood, even the people in charge have people in charge. "
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Hollywood
Heights
Tough
" 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. "
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Pretty
Playing
World
" A lot of the reason the Universal version of 'Heights' went away is that they were afraid they didn't have a big enough Latino star to bankroll this movie. The people I dealt with at the studio who wanted to make this movie were very passionate about it. "
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Enough
People
Heights
" There's been lots of theater that uses hip-hop in it, but more often than not, it's used as a joke - isn't it hilarious that these characters are rapping. I treat it as a musical form, and a musical form that allows you to pack in a ton of lyric. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Hip-Hop
Treat
Joke