"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."

"We lost this brave genius last year, and the books he gifted us while he lived are so wonderfully strange and honest and beautiful, I can't believe he even existed. He was more than a poet or performance artist—Baumer’s life itself was a work of art. He was truly radical, and the most openhearted, un-jaded human I've ever met."

"This book wowed me and spoke to me so intimately, I knew I had to befriend Sarah Gerard, who is just as powerful, beautiful and bright as I imagined. It's a short road trip book about a starving maniac and her terrible boyfriend that seems to expand beyond the limits of the page and the entire universe. It still echoes in my mind."