"I reread this book every couple of years. I’m still trying to understand why it has me so completely in its thrall. It’s a mystery, wrapped in a dream. No wonder all attempts to film, dramatize or musicalize it have missed. These are not “real” people. They are ghosts of the American dream who continue to haunt us. Their laughter seems long ago but their sadness is contemporary."

"The romance in this novel is so distinct, so interesting, and so surprising because it's so flawed. The couple — Dick and Nicole Diver — are gorgeous. You believe they're perfect, and then you find out that, in fact, they are deeply troubled — she especially. Dick rescues Nicole for a time, but he can't save her; she's too unstable. So they don't make it — they can't. It's an exquisite and unbearable love story."

"A dice roll—it could have been L’avventura or La notte, but I rewatched this recently and was blown away by Antonioni’s mastery and control, and his epic nihilistic vision of upper-middle-class despair is sweeping and unrivaled. Alain Delon and Monica Vitti are the most gorgeous couple in ’60s international cinema—embalmed and yet completely alive. The trilogy is one of the great achievements in twentieth-century film."

"The television (read: long) version of Bergman’s X-ray of a married couple is, of course, insightful, heartbreaking, painfully true, and oddly hilarious, but it’s also one very unexpected thing: riveting. Put the first episode on at a decent hour and see if you can stop watching the entire set. It’s like the Swedish 24, except you can still go to parties and claim not to watch television."