"The Godfather. That’s two. One and two. Oh, it’s just epic, you know. It’s the best soap opera. It’s all those — you know, it’s the human drama and it’s exciting. And if it was done badly it’s like a soap opera in the afternoon, and you just realize that there are only so many stories that can be told, but when they’re told in the right way they’re beautiful and effective. So much of it is good, you know: The acting is good, the directing is subtle, withheld — so much of it in wide shots, with very few close ups. It takes balls to do that. I mean, it’s a different world now; close ups are the way people tell stories now. I don’t mind close-ups, I like them, but they’re kind of forceful — you see a lot, you get a lot of information in a close-up. There’s less mystery."

"Wanda was my mentor and has such a sharp, vicious, lyrical voice, her poems almost come off the page and sing to you. I revisit this book often. Wanda was and is considered the voice of Los Angeles. She wrote about everything from growing up in the tough neighborhood of Watts California, to writing for a soap opera, to the objectification and marginalization of not only being a woman, but a woman of color."

"Despite its grand place in the literary canon, “Middlemarch” is really a rich, gossipy boxed set of a novel. I first read this as a teenager in short bursts nightly with a torch after lights-out, and it gripped me like a soap opera. The foolishness of the human condition, the urgency of its whims and fancies, and the often blinding need to find meaning are unsparingly chronicled in this feast of a book."

"Melville is master of the jump cut. I fell in love with this book. The words were songs, the flow embraced the way we actually think. Backtracking, looping, jumping. But here’s a tip: if you’re thinking of making a multimedia opera from your favorite book, don’t do it! I tried it and didn’t have the nerve to rough it up. I never took off the white gloves. So obviously it didn’t work out"

"One of the greatest, funniest, and truest reflections on trying to become an adult, The Last Days of Disco is also one of three movies that have the most lines of dialogue perpetually floating around in my head (the other two being A Night at the Opera and Clueless). Right now I’m thinking of Chris Eigeman telling his friends, “I wish we were yuppies. Young, upwardly mobile, professional. Those are good things, not bad things.”"

"Melville is master of the jump cut. I fell in love with this book. The words were songs, the flow embraced the way we actually think. Backtracking, looping, jumping. But here’s a tip: if you’re thinking of making a multimedia opera from your favorite book, don’t do it! I tried it and didn’t have the nerve to rough it up. I never took off the white gloves. So obviously it didn’t work out.”"