“I once asked Aragon, the historian, how history was written. He said, 'You have to invent it.' When I wish as now to tell of critical incidents, persons, and events that have influenced my life and work, the true answer is all of the incidents were critical, all of the people influenced me, everything that happened and that is still happening influences me.”

— John Cage

Quote of John Cage: the first lines of his 'Autobiographical Statement', April, 1990 http://www.johncage.org/autobiographical_statement.html
1990s

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John Cage 43

American avant-garde composer 1912–1992

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

“MGR has been a great influence in my life, I don’t deny that. But now I am my own person. I have evolved. Hereafter, I am responsible only for myself. Never again will anybody influence me to such an extent that all my thoughts and actions and statements are influenced and made in a particular way just because someone else wants it that way.”

Jayalalithaa (1948–2016) Indian politician and actress

Source: In an interview to Saavy magazine. The Life And Times Of Jayalalitha Ajith Pillai, A.S. Panneerselvan http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?205450, 04 May 1998.

“Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of all the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.”

Giorgos Seferis (1900–1971) Greek poet and diplomat

Source: "Greek poet's odyssey", 17 Jan 1964, LIFE Magazine, ‎Vol. 56, No. 3, Page 75.

“Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Actually said by Giorgos Seferis
Misattributed

“Oh! the incidents all happened but — I'm not telling as much of the truth about them as I know.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Letter to Elizabeth Otis, expressing dissatisfaction with L'Affaire Lettuceburg — a satire he abandoned in favor of work on what became The Grapes of Wrath (c. mid-May 1938) as quoted in Conversations with John Steinbeck (1988) edited by Thomas Fensch, p. 38
Context: You see this book is finished and it is a bad book and I must get rid of it. It can't be printed. It is bad because it isn't honest. Oh! the incidents all happened but — I'm not telling as much of the truth about them as I know. In satire you have to restrict the picture and I just can't do satire. I've written three books now that were dishonest because they were less than the best that I could do. One you never saw because I burned it the day I finished it. … My whole work drive has been aimed at making people understand each other and then I deliberately write this book, the aim of which is to cause hatred through partial understanding. My father would have called it a smart-alec book. It was full of tricks to make people ridiculous. If I can't do better I have slipped badly. And that I won't admit — yet.