"I’ve been listening to The Incredible String Band, but that’s about it. The other night I sang with Mr Heron [Mike Heron, co-songwriter and co-frontman along with Robin Williamson] and Robyn Hitchcock, you see, we sang ‘A Very Cellular Song’ [13-minute epic from ‘The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter’] and it was fantastic, so that nudged me into listening to that album]"

"The most horrible creations of the 20th century are fascism and Nazism, and the most beautiful one is cinema. There isn’t a film that better displays the fascination of fascism. How can the human brain be disturbed to the point of getting that enthralled by violence? The junction of the best and the worst of the 20th century – between History and Cinema."

"The most beautiful melodrama ever made. I can’t help crying when I think about the last scene, on the Island of Sado: in the beach, near a poor shack, the sublime Kinuyo Tanaka, now old and blind, finally reunites with her long-lost son, Zushio. And life goes on; the seaweed picker continues to turn the weeds that dry in the sun."

"There’s a reason this is one of Ingmar Bergman’s most cited works: it’s one of his best. A beautiful and unusually brisk road movie, this may be Bergman’s most accessible film, but what’s wrong with that? This is the kind of film artists spend their entire careers striving for. Bergman achieved it early on, and made many more classics as a result."

"This is such a beautiful, sad movie. A film about the fifties infused with the disappointment of the seventies that, when watched now, simply seems to be about the disappointment inherent in all of our lives. Like all incredible films, it seems to burn itself into your mind like memories of your own life. Jeff Bridges is also really hot in it."

"I jokingly call myself a ‘Borg-again Christian.’ Born into the Episcopalian church and raised Catholic, I bolted from organized religion when it got too hard to find God — when politics and certainty replaced mystery and faith. Years later, this book brought me back. It’s a beautiful reminder of what’s possible when the church commits itself to love and justice above all."

"Don DeLillo is my sentence god. His sentences are more nuanced and forceful and beautiful than any sentences I know. If, upon departing for this hypothetical island, I were to be told I had to shed some weight, I could (though I’d be sorry to) just take a single DeLillo sentence with me, and read it over and over again."

"I’m currently working through this one story at a time A friend who works in publishing introduced me to Monterroso’s writing because I have often called some of my work fables, and Monterroso’s short stories feel like that, also. But they are also very unsettling, with a Kafak-esque sheen to them, like black little pearls that are beautiful but scare you."

"And then Memoirs of a Geisha. First of all, so beautifully shot. A wonderful love story. I cried. My friend who took me — she said, “This movie’s great.” And it took me 10 to 15 minutes after the movie to calm down because it was just such a beautiful love story that was so wonderfully shot, and the actors… It was just gorgeous."