"It was a Hitchcock film, and there was a code of some kind that required a password with thirty-nine activators. I saw the film when I was about ten years old, and it obviously made a big enough impression for me to put it on your list."

"For many years I was curious about human consciousness. How did we become conscious of our consciousness? McKenna argues, quite convincingly, that it may have been because of our hunter gatherer ancestors consumption of psychotropic plants and herbs. Fun fact: the book was recommended to me by Whoopi Goldberg."

"Frankenheimer and DP James Wong Howe’s aggressive camera work put me right into the paranoia of the “reborns.” Fifteen years after this was made, I worked on a Frankenheimer production and would literally hide in the shadows watching how he directed actors and blocked a scene—he was remarkable."

"“I’ve always read a lot, but I seemed to be going through books and nothing was happening. I read On The Road three years ago when we were just starting to travel and that was the first moment I’d read a book that was really connecting with my life.”"

"I don’t even know how I came across this book, but I read the title story every few years and just feel SO SAD. I thought my life would slip right through my fingers as it did for this narrator, and though it hasn’t…it also has. Super Russian."

"The first time I read it I was 13 – now I read it about every five years. It’s such a complete world. I love the combination of how real and surreal it is at the same time – and how it spans history and time. It’s poetic. And very sympathetic.”"

"I first read this short story collection many years ago and it has stayed with me. I was struck by the title, and then the stories, each focused on black girls and women, the worlds of those stories fully realized and held carefully in Johnson’s very talented hands"