"I never again slept with my former serenity. [The book] determined a new direction for my life from its first line, which today is one of the great devices in world literature: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” [I realized that] it was not necessary to demonstrate facts: it was enough for the author to have written something for it to be true, with no proof other than the power of his talent and the authority of his voice. It was Scheherazade all over again, not in her millenary world where everything was possible but in another irreparable world where everything had already been lost. When I finished reading The Metamorphosis I felt an irresistible longing to live in that alien paradise"

"I probably broke into the soul music next and started getting into Sam Cooke. Bring It On Home to Me would be the big one for me. That song showed me that speaking from the heart was the way to do it. I knew that I was never going to sing or play instruments like that, but I didn’t care. I was around 19 at this point and right around then I went back to Joe Strummer. I lost touch with The Clash for a while because I’d heard it, I’d studied it, and I’d put it away for a while. But then Joe came out with The Mescaleros records and I was back in."

"This is my first favorite book ever. My mother bought it for me as a kid and it came with a Stellanuna plush doll. Manly, right? Mom read it to me whenever I asked until I lost Stellaluna in the first grade. (TRAGIC.) My mother, being the most awesome of mothers, put up Missing Poster signs for Stellaluna. No one ever called with information, no ransom notes were left next to my lunch box, and Stellaluna wasn't hiding inside my hamper or under my bed. Stellaluna was gone. I thought back to the book, and how the birds cared for Stellaluna while she was lost - teaching her to sit upright during the day and all that - and how her time with the birds - and me - was short-lived so she could return to a life of living in the night and sleeping upside down. I think maybe my bat went home."

"I was having a birthday party last year, and a friend handed me this. I was so riveted that I asked the author, who almost never gives interviews, to talk with me on OWN. Here’s one of my favorite observations in this essential work: ‘To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them…. Once you’ve made the commitment to free yourself of that scared person inside, you will notice that there is a clear decision point at which your growth takes place."

"This is one of my favorite films. The way that Louis Malle shoots Jeanne Moreau—those are some of the most beautiful walking scenes I’ve seen. She’s walking in the rain with her head held high, lost in herself, mumbling, and with that amazing score being played by Miles Davis. There is something so modern about the film, and it feels like it opens so many doors. When I was making A Fantastic Woman, I was trying to get a little bit closer to the elegant approach that Malle used to capture Moreau’s presence."