"Once you put aside the matter of OH MY GOD THE SLAVERY JESUS LOOK AT ALL THE FREAKING SLAVERY STOP WITH THE SLAVERY, MAN, the core conceit of this book is amazing. It the most famous teen literature ever-Scarlett is 16 when the Civil War kicks off, and what keeps her going through the complete destruction of her family, status and life is her unrequited love for Ashley Wilkes. The idea of that kind of demented fantasy-let's face it, Ashley's a drip-keeping you going through awful years is such a key Teenage Girl Thing. The fuel is mad unrequited love, keeping you going. It inspired both the "Fantasy Love Affairs" chapter in How To Be A Woman, and most of the plot of How To Build A Girl, hahaha."

"Eurythmics were another band that I was introduced to through MTV. I think that's how I got into synth-pop music. Annie Lennox has an amazing voice but also the instruments that they use, the way it was produced was so cool and different and tough. As a kid I loved 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)' because it was the big hit, but later in my life when I went back to the record I listened to 'Love Is A Stranger' as if I'd never heard it before. It's just so amazing that I couldn't believe I didn't remember it from when I was younger. Among the DFA family it's a universally loved song. We all try to emulate it, some aspect of it, in some way in different things that we do."

"This is generally known as Bergman’s most personal film, a complete masterpiece and triumphant study of childhood and the human condition, but I came to it by accident. This is a bit embarrassing, but I was about fifteen and I thought it was the movie adaptation of Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. To a highly untrained teenager’s eye, there are just enough similarities—like messed-up bourgeois family dynamics as seen through the prism of siblings—that I must have thought, “Well, I guess the whole thing just takes place over Christmas now. And they changed the names. And everyone’s Swedish.” Best cinematic mix-up of my life. Even better than that time in college when I drunkenly watched the second disc of Magnolia first and thought it made total sense."