"Like Melville, Michael Mann is a master of silent storytelling, but he is also one of the best writers of dialogue I know. There’s a scene between James Caan and Tuesday Weld in a diner that goes on for ten minutes, but you never get bored for a second. They go from being virtual strangers to lovers in the course of a conversation, and you don’t question it. Not only do his criminals feel authentic when they talk about their profession but their inarticulate attempts at declaring their love feel just as true."

"That hits home for my sci-fi nerd self side of myself. I love the first one, A New Hope — that’s where it all started. But, Empire was just so awesome. I always remember watching Empire and being like, “Man, this movie is awesome from top to bottom.” So many good battles between Luke and Vader. Luke getting his arm chopped off — it’s a cold blooded movie. Return of the Jedi is awesome too. But, without Empire Strikes Back, I don’t know if Jedi would’ve even been a thing. So much Billy Dee Williams, too."

"I just love this book. When I was halfway through it—right around when one of the three daughters tries to talk to her father and he goes out into a storm—I was like, “Oh my God, this is King Lear.” I was so impressed with how Smiley was able to take such a classic tale and put it in rural 20th-century Iowa. It’s beautiful, it’s crushing, it’s everything King Lear is—and it’s effortless. I was blown away by the imagination, intellect and talent it must have taken to do that."

"The movie Churchill! Well of course, yeah! I mean, I had hearing aids on but I couldn’t catch exactly all the words, but I knew the meaning behind them. It was just marvelous how, I guess, a politician could absorb so much of the strategy required to deal with the challenges that Great Britain faced. The guy who played Churchill, when I saw him in real life, I can’t imagine how they made him up to look like Winnie. He was bouncing all over the place, making facial expressions all the time."