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" When I was asked to do a song from 'In the Heights' at the White House in 2009, I chose instead to do 'Alexander Hamilton' because I felt like I was meeting a moment. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Song
Heights
White
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" If there is a Busta Rhymes of musical theater, it probably is Mandy Patinkin. "
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" 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. "
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" I only know how to write musicals. "
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" I grew up in an immigrant neighborhood. We just knew the rule was you're going to have to work twice as hard. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" I kind of need to be ambulatory to write lyrics. "
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" What's incredible about 'Hamilton,' and the reason you can't get a ticket, is because everyone's responding to it. Everyone is seeing a bit of themselves in it. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Everyone
You
Seeing
" 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
" 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. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Me
Responsibility
Time
" 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
" 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 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
" In 'Hamilton,' we're telling the stories of old, dead white men, but we're using actors of color, and that makes the story more immediate and more accessible to a contemporary audience. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Color
Dead
Men
" You could do a 'Les Mis'-type musical about Hamilton, but it would have to be 12 hours long, because the amount of words on the bars when you're writing a typical song - that's maybe got 10 words per line. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Writing
Words
Line
" 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
" 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
" I couldn't possibly write 'Next to Normal,' but God, I can weep and watch 'Next to Normal' five times. "
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Next
Watch
Write
" 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
" Everything we know about Hamilton, we knew when he was alive, because he told us. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Alive
He
Us
" 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
" 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
" 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?' "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
You
Create
Finish
" 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
" What 'Twilight Zone' did was show we all have a great capacity for good and evil. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Great
Evil
Good
" The only shows I saw as a kid were that holy trinity: 'Les Miz,' 'Cats,' 'Phantom.' "
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Only
Trinity
Cats
" 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
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World
" 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. "
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High School
Story
Want
" 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. "
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" If Hamilton were on Twitter, he would have been a worse oversharer than me. "
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Been
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Than