"Written after the end of WWI, which upended the globe, but set in 1901 in a provincial town where nothing, nothing, nothing at all can change, this enchanting, witty, shattering, profoundly compassionate fable-like short novel seems to contain all the world’s pain in an iridescent soap-bubble."

"Marie is very very bad which makes her very very interesting and, in fact, endearing. This slender novel is witty and sharp and sexy. It’s a wild ride from New York to Paris to Mexico as Marie tries to find herself, at any cost. Oh what ride it is."

"Marie is very very bad which makes her very very interesting and, in fact, endearing. This slender novel is witty and sharp and sexy. It's a wild ride from New York to Paris to Mexico as Marie tries to find herself, at any cost. Oh what ride it is."

"His writing, like his thinking, is so clear and beautiful, always eloquent and elegant even when he is writing, as here, about race and religion. There is anger, of course, but somehow he also manages to be witty, and so, so clever. I always imagine he must have been brilliant company."

"The most perfect screwball comedy ever, to me. I can turn it on at any point and be laughing within seconds. Also, one of the sexiest marriages ever captured on film: Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea, competing for most delectable. Witty, naughty, and utterly unpredictable—all the things screwball should be."

"I’ve never been a huge fan of David Lean’s epics and think the modest British films he did in the 1940s are superior. I also wouldn’t have thought he had a glimmer of humor, but this film is witty, and the actors (even Charles Laughton) have been directed with insight."