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I wrote poetry before I wrote songs, and T.S. Eliot was my inspiration. I love his honesty and try to bring that to my own songwriting.

I've always said I'm more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they're given to work and think, than I really am by other writers.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

I've been influenced by poets as diverse as Dylan Thomas, Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Allan Poe.

My songwriting is so influenced by orchestrated music, dramatic, super glam rock-y stuff. Two of my biggest influences in songwriting were Elton John and Freddie Mercury.

I'm really influenced by so many different things.

On the surface, 'Book of Mormon' is extremely irreverent, but underneath, there's a great sweetness and a very positive message.

I was mainly influenced by the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, and others like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash.

I was influenced very much by St. Francis of Assisi, whose idea was to radically live the gospel. He was not a priest, or even a brother. He was a layperson. His whole concept was to emulate Christ through the gospels, and to live it in a radical way.