"Yes, a few of the lines are easy to mock (“I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee.”) Yes, the constant use of “thee” is grating. But my love for this novel isn’t rational. I have no interest in defending it. I loved it from first to last. No final page has ever left me as shattered as this one."

"The Jackson Five is one of my favorites. Songs like 'The Love You Save,' 'I Want You Back,' and their cover of 'Who’s Lovin You' are up there with some of the greatest of all time. And here they were, a young family making their first record and having such an incredible impact. There’s nothing you can’t do! And the hits just came coming—it's hard to pick one record because I love so many other tracks that came later like 'Can You Feel It' and 'Maria.' There are too many to count!"

"The second one is that incredibly brilliant movie Betty Blue, which I love because it opens with that incredible lovemaking scene with Béatrice Dalle. There’s just something so vivid and luscious about it. It’s just so beautiful and sensual in every regard and I absolutely love the film. I saw it recently and it’s just as brilliant. And the incredible soundtrack, you know. It’s just as brilliant as when I first saw it. Withnail and I and Betty Blue were both in the same period; they were both seminal cinematic experiences for me."

"High and Low is my personal favorite Kurosawa movie. I love everything about it: the chamber piece of the first half, the sprawling police hunt that follows, the fact that Toshiro Mifune’s character is so committed to making high-quality women’s shoes. And there are so many great moments throughout: the pink smoke, the train sequence, the amazing ending scene. I find it so stunning and effective, and I love the way the film gets at themes of class and social inequality in the form of such an exciting procedural crime thriller."