"Basically the fines essay I've ever read. It's technically two essays but it feels like one. Baldwin refused to hold anyone's hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you."

"A book that deeply informs my journalist sense. Writers-particularly American writers-constantly feel the pull of soulutionism, the desire to assure their readers that there is a way out, even when there isn't. Judt refused this. History, he understood, does not exist to comfort us."

"This double bill gives an excellent chance to compare the acting of Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune. Neither is anything but perfect. It is a mystery how Kurosawa, who always refused to make a film without a social statement, manages at the same time to be one of the most entertaining of all filmmakers."

"This double bill gives an excellent chance to compare the acting of Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune. Neither is anything but perfect. It is a mystery how Kurosawa, who always refused to make a film without a social statement, manages at the same time to be one of the most entertaining of all filmmakers."

"I got really obsessed with Queen when I was about 15 or 16. I don’t know what it was. I just love the songs, they’re incredibly well-written. Total pop songs, but so deep and technical. I remember reading a thing saying that Brian May refused to tour the world until he finished his degree in mathematics and physics because he wanted something to fall back on if the music thing didn’t work. I thought that was so cool."