Daily Inspiration Quote by Neil Patrick Harris

Neil Patrick Harris is talking about taste like an actor, not a critic: as something that changes once your body, not just your ears, has to live inside the material. The small confession at the top - "I loved Rent... but it grew on me" - is a neat reversal that signals humility and craft. He admits first impressions are noisy. What lasts is what keeps revealing itself under repetition, rehearsal, and performance pressure.

The subtext is a defense of the deep cut. In pop culture, we reward instant hooks and obvious "showstoppers". Harris points to a slower burn: songs that don't announce themselves as favorites can become the most satisfying to perform because they have room to play. For an actor, "interesting" isn't just melody; it's dramatic architecture. A song you can keep discovering usually has sharper turns, more subtext, more emotional gears. The ones that "never stood out" might be the ones without flashy surface features but with better acting problems to solve.

Context matters: Rent and Tick, Tick... Boom are both tied to Jonathan Larson and to a particular mythology of hungry, downtown ambition that later became mainstream. Harris, who’s spent his career toggling between mass entertainment and Broadway credibility, is also signaling allegiance to that lineage while subtly rejecting fandom as a fixed identity. It's a performer’s reminder that art isn't only what hits you immediately; it’s what survives the grind and still gives you new ways to be alive onstage.