"John Cage sings to me in that calm gentle voice of his every day. Just sitting here while writing this — crick crack of logs burning in woodstove, almost silent sound of a distant wind — I am reminded that the universe is a constantly changing song. The most beautiful music in existence is when we let our minds be silent."

"Louise Brooks defines screen presence. She is so mesmerizing, vulnerable, beautiful, and strong/silent that I had to seek out every one of her performances. There is no other like her, as there is no other Marcello Mastroianni. Diary of a Lost Girl may be even better. If you need to coax a friend to lose their dramatic silent film virginity, start with these . . . and then move to Greed."

"All of Hitchcock — I don’t think I can even identify a particular film. After I transitioned out of the art world into film, I was doing a graduate degree at Columbia University and I took a class with Andrew Sarris, who I think is one of the treasures of the film world. We looked at an overview of Hitchcock during the two-year course, starting with his silents. And there are some extraordinary silent movies of his; I’m not sure how readily available they are, but there’s a phenomenal film — I think it’s called Murder! — and it’s silent, but it’s as tense as Psycho or The Birds or Notorious or Rear Window. [Editor’s note: Hitchcock’s 1930 film Murder! was one of his first talkies, but his 1927 silent, The Lodger, is one of his most celebrated. Both were released jointly to home video in 2002.] It’s a silent film, but it’s Hitchcock. All of his signatures, all the signifiers, everything we’ve come to know and love about Hitchcock, they’re all in play."

"Ang Lee is a master at telling the entire history of a relationship in one simple, silent moment. This is an astonishingly beautiful and devastating film. From top to bottom, the performances are stellar."