Who's Your Biggest Influence?

I often get asked if there is an author that inspired me to become a writer.  I'm not sure it works that way.  You're either a writer or you're not.  It's something you feel, something you are.  You can read an author and think "I want to be that good" or "I want to write stories like that" but I'm not sure that reading someone will make you suddenly say that you want to be an author too.

I don't have one writer that has influenced me the most.  I have read such a variety throughout my life and so many different genres and they have all had an affect on me.  Jane Austin, John Steinbeck, Marcia Muller, Dick Francis, Harper Lee, Nora Roberts, Victoria Holt, James Patterson, Lynn Johnston, Mark Twain, Edmond Rostand, Miguel de Cervantes, Agatha Christie ....  You get the idea.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the authors that has, obviously, been of major importance in my life.  Carolyn Keene, a pen name for a variety of authors, awakened in me the idea that reading could be so much more fun that the stories I'd been reading up until I'd discovered the girl detective (mostly books like Black Beauty) and showed me that girls were pretty cool too! 

So which book/writer influenced you to be a writer, or to follow whatever path you're on?