"It’s now my favorite novel—it’s just the greatest explosion of imagination, craziness, satire, humor, and heart…There are passages that have become everyday Russian sayings. For instance, ‘Manuscripts don’t burn.’ If it had ever come out that this book was being written, Bulgakov would likely have disappeared permanently. That phrase stands for the fact that nothing is more powerful or more indestructible than the written word."

"Chaplin’s great satire on the American fantasy of infinite progress. For a movie about the plight of the dispossessed, it is overflowing with hilarity. Perhaps my favorite visual gag in any movie: a flag falls off the back of a passing truck. Chaplin picks it up and waves it exuberantly at the driver—just as a mob of protest marchers come up the street behind him, causing the police to mistake the Little Tramp for a radical leader."

"And then another one called Pillow Talk. That’s a little change of pace here, but it is a film that I always love to watch. I must have seen it 10 times. I don’t remember the director’s name, but I know the writer, Stanley Shapiro, is really great with social satire and the battle of the sexes. For me, it’s a film I continue to laugh at each time I see it. The jokes never get stale."