"Columbine convinced me to tell a hard story. I wanted to end the sixth season of Grey’s Anatomy with a hospital shooting, but I was worried about the portrayal of violence and how to convey the deeper message to the audience. Then I came across this book by Dave Cullen. Reading it broke my heart open. It’s not about a shooting as much as it’s about what happens to people who survive this kind of tragedy. It’s written with a raw honesty that helped me glimpse the emotional toll this kind of event can have. Anyone concerned about gun violence in schools should consider it required reading."

"Oh, The Godfather. If it gets any better than that… I mean, it’s so beautifully shot. I’m not a fan of violent movies, but that one is such an epic film. The violence is part and parcel of the story they’re telling, so, it’s legitimate. In a weird way, I find there’s no gratuitous violence in it. Even though there’s a lot of shooting in that thing, every time there’s a shootout, I found it upsetting and horrifying as opposed to films which just trade on mowing human beings down. Those I find pornographic and not sad. I think it does damage to our society, personally."

"This was the present I gave everyone I knew for three years. It’s six different stories told in different time periods and genres: One is historical fiction, another is a ’70s thriller mystery, the sixth is a post­apocalyptic story. It’s one of the most beautiful, entertaining, challenging books—something that takes all your attention. I think the stories are meditations on violence, specifically the necessity of violence. The book ends with a beautiful exchange: ‘…only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean! Yet what is an ocean but a multitude of drops."