If there's one person I looked up to obsessively, it was Will Smith. There wasn't anyone who looked like me on TV in England. 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' was my touchstone.

I think even great writers only write two books that you might like. When I think of my touchstone writers like Saul Bellow, I think of 'Henderson the Rain King.' With Don DeLillo, I think of 'Libra.'

Experience has taught me that privacy truly is the touchstone of our criminal justice system.

I don't write songs that don't affect me on some level, because I figure if I am not moved by it, if its not something that I have a longing to celebrate or to be reminded of, if it doesn't affect me, then how can I possibly think it is going to affect somebody else. My touchstone is write something that matters.

For every SF reader of that period, Robert A. Heinlein was also a touchstone.

BET was a touchstone for me and a lot of my friends - it was a place you could go to see exactly what being black in 1992 and 1996 was like and what it was supposed to look like.

From a plot perspective, what I finally found for my touchstone was that I consider 'Upside' to be a loose telling of Jane Austen's 'Emma,' or 'Clueless.'

I'm just a member of the audience with each project I work on, and I hope to never lose that. It's my touchstone. It's the thing I never want to overanalyze.

I believe 'Lean In' has the power to change not only our outlook but also the world and that it will become a touchstone publication for a generation of women.

I have never read any Tolstoy. I felt badly about this until I read a Bill Simmons column where he confessed that he'd never seen 'The Big Lebowski.' Simmons, it should be pointed out, has seen everything. He said that everyone needs to have skipped at least one great cultural touchstone.

For some reason, 1968 is a touchstone year for me. I think it was the first year I felt fully conscious.

Back when I was in theater school, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, 'Sweeney Todd' was a huge touchstone for me, my favorite musical for sure.

I think the touchstone is to give consumers a full, fair choice without the power of a monopoly operating system pushing them in a direction that free competition might or might not achieve.

When you grow up with siblings, you can be like, 'Isn't this weird? Isn't this funny? Do we agree on this, or do we disagree?' You have some point of reference, some touchstone. When you grow up an only child, everything is internalized.

'Lost' is an entity of its own. It's still such a culture touchstone that I think it'll be something people go back to for a long time, like 'Star Trek.' I'm just so amazed by the show's popularity.

When you tell people you're a playwright, their eyes sort of glaze over. But when you say you write the 'Fantastic Four' or 'Spider-Man,' they perk up. It's a touchstone that has gained more credibility as artistic expression.

One day in 1984, at the height of his fame, Michael Jackson made a visit to the White House. President and Nancy Reagan may not have dug his music, but they understood the power Mr. Jackson commanded as a common pop-cultural touchstone for just about everyone else.

It's easy to forget history or give it a cliff notes. The cliff notes of history. But mainly, so much of what happens in 'Eyes on the Prize' happened in Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi isn't really known for any other touchstone to the movement, other than Medgar Evers being killed. There were sit-ins and riots and atrocities.

A renewed commitment to the freedom and opportunity of our people is the touchstone of our time. In this new century, where tests are many and challenges change with the shifting of the wind, we must hold fast to the principles that have made our nation the envy of the world.

Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.