Welcome to our collection of quotes by Lin-Manuel Miranda. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lin-Manuel Miranda () (born January 16, 1980) is an American actor, singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, and playwright. He created and starred in the Broadway musicals In the Heights and Hamilton. His awards include a Pulitzer Prize, two Laurence Olivier Awards, three Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, two Emmy Awards, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2018.
A graduate of Wesleyan University, Miranda made his Broadway debut in the 2008 musical In the Heights for which he starred and wrote the music and lyrics. The production was a critical and commercial success winning the Tony Award for Best Musical. Miranda won the Tony Award for Best Original Score and was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical. Miranda along with the show's cast won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. The stage musical has been made into a film, also titled In the Heights, which was released in June 2021.
He gained wider recognition for writing the script, music and lyrics for Hamilton, which has been acclaimed as a pop culture phenomenon since its Broadway premiere in 2015. The show earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, and was nominated for a record 16 Tony Awards, of which it won 11, including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book. For portraying the titular role, Miranda was nominated for another Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. The Hamilton cast recording spent ten weeks atop Billboard's Top Rap Albums chart in 2015; Billboard subsequently listed it as the eleventh-biggest album of the 2010s. The Hamilton Mixtape, an album of covers of songs from the musical, developed by and featuring Miranda, reached number one on the Billboard 200.
As a collaborator of The Walt Disney Company, Miranda wrote music and songs in the animated musical Moana (2016), which gained him an Academy Award for Best Original Song nomination for the song "How Far I'll Go", and starred as Jack in the musical fantasy Mary Poppins Returns (2018), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. For his performance in the Disney+ live stage recording of Hamilton which was released in 2020 he received both Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Miranda is making his directorial film debut with the film adaptation Tick, Tick...
Boom! (2021). He also lent his voice to the animated films Vivo, and Encanto both released in 2021. Miranda's television work includes recurring roles on The Electric Company (2009–2010) and His Dark Materials (2019). He received two Emmy award nominations for acting for hosting Saturday Night Live in 2017, and for his appearance on Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2018.
Miranda has been politically active, most notably on behalf of Puerto Rico, including support for the 2016 PROMESA. He met with politicians in 2016 to speak out in favor of debt relief for Puerto Rico and raised funds for rescue efforts and disaster relief after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
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.
I couldn't possibly write 'Next to Normal,' but God, I can weep and watch 'Next to Normal' five times.
'Rent' was the show that made me want to write. Or that showed me you're allowed to write.
If there is a Busta Rhymes of musical theater, it probably is Mandy Patinkin.
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.
What 'Twilight Zone' did was show we all have a great capacity for good and evil.
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.
A big part of growing up is bringing all of yourself into a space, not just the parts of yourself that relate to the people in the room.
You are perfectly cast in your life. I can't imagine anyone but you in the role. Go play.
NINA
When I was a child I stayed wide awake
Climbed to the highest place
On every fire escape
Restless to climb
I got every scholarship
Saved every dollar
The first to go to college
How do I tell them why
I'm coming back home?
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.
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 work my inspiration til I find a spark of life in it
I draw on it
I siphon it
I earn my multi-hyphenate.
You are not defined by the speed of your surroundings, your mind is racing.
The only shows I saw as a kid were that holy trinity: 'Les Miz,' 'Cats,' 'Phantom.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
That's being yourself. Chasing wherever inspiration goes, even if it's radically different from the thing that people know you as.
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.
It was a real dream come true just to get the job in Moana, and yeah, and we sort of got right to work.
My rhymes are gonna kill, so I suggest you write your will and leave your expletive to me.
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 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.
Unclench your fists. Lower your shoulders. Step away. Then come back with a clear head, redouble your efforts. I believe in you.
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.
Good morning.
Your very presence is intoxicating.
Good night.
Your very absence is sobering.
You will have to say no to things to say yes to your work. It will be worth it.
You can't control the success or failure of a thing you work on. You can only control the thing you work on.
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.
My sister is as responsible for anyone for giving me good taste in music.
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.
If you think in terms of topping, you're in the wrong business. You can't think that way.
I'm just like my country, I'm young, scrappy and hungry, and I'm not throwing away my shot.
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.
Come on brain, think of things
Come on brain, think of things
Come on brain, be so smart.
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.
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.
You've got friends and loved ones going through it today.
Be there for them.
Shore up your support and love.
Earn those titles today, friends and loved ones.
❤️❤️❤️.
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 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.
Gmorning to the miracle
(psst that's you,
you're the miracle)
Gnight to the miracle
(Quit looking around,
you're the miracle, YOU).
We push away what we can never understand; we push away the unimaginable.
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.
You cannot let all the world's tragedies into your heart. You'll drown. But the ones you do let in should count. Let them manifest action.
Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.
In your corner even in the roundest of rooms, on your side even when it makes the see-saw kind of boring.
I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal trying to reach my goal.
With every word, I drop knowledge. I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal trying to reach my goal.
ELIZA
You and your words flooded my senses, your sentences left me defenseless. You built me palaces out of paragraphs, you built cathedrals.
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.
(Questlove) Is this the most revolutionary thing to happen to Broadway, or the most revolutionary thing to happen to hip-hop?
When Lin optioned his book, Ron was relieved that the Founding Father who had the most dramatic and least appreciated life story would finally get his due--even though a rap musical was the last way that Ron had anticipated Hamilton getting it.
I am not throwing away my shot.
I am not throwing away my shot.
I'm just like my country.
I'm young, scrappy, and hungry.
And I am not throwing away my shot.
I am the one thing in life I can control. I am inimitable; I am an original. I'm not falling behind or running late. I'm not standing still: I am lying in wait.
When my prayers to God were met with indifference, I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.
Life doesn't discriminate
Between the sinners and the saints
It takes and it takes and it takes
And we keep living anyway
We rise and we fall and we break
And we make our mistakes.
I am the one thing in life I can control.
I am inimitable.
I am an original.
Lin beamed, and threw a couple of triumphant middle fingers in the air.
I have been working on this movie Moana since before Hamilton happened.
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.
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.
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.
The music you love when you're a teenager is always going to be the most important to you, and I find that it's all over the score of 'Hamilton.'
Good morning, stunner.
You're just getting started.
Your age doesn't matter.
The sun is up, the day is new,
You're just getting started.
Good morning.
Lead with gratitude.
The air in your lungs, the sky above you.
Proceed from there.
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 know my sister like I know my own mind, you will never find anyone as trusting or as kind.
Gmorning and a kiss on every letter in your blessed name
Gnight and a kiss on every letter in your blessed name.
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.
You know what's a great way of tricking people into thinking you're a genius? Write a show about geniuses!
Everything we know about Hamilton, we knew when he was alive, because he told us.
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.