"Top to bottom, a perfect film – pure joy! Brittany Murphy was one of the greats. I just think the joy in that movie and, again, maybe taking a character that seems harder to empathize with out of the gate, and [having us] realize what a human being she is, and [it’s] an exploration of a different side of culture. As a Jersey girl, it was always very fascinating and fun for me to see that sort of L.A. kids’ culture and, of course, the fashion. I just miss the ’90s."

"I love Louis Malle’s films because he’s always inventive in his own way. He’s not trying to be anybody else or copy any kind of fashion; he’s trying to give us something he believes in. In The Fire Within you feel this French, fifties-sixties kind of atmosphere: there’s always piano music by Satie and this feeling of desire for something grander, more powerful, more passionate. I felt that way as a teenager and a younger adult, always thinking life was never as intense as I wished it could be."

"A novel that has as its main character an Old Lady who is liberated from the boredom of her secure life at an eccentric home for elderly ladies when given a hearing trumpet — and whose wish to go to the North pole before she dies comes true in the most unlikely fashion — has to be good. Even though she is better known as one of the best painters of Surrealism Leonora Carrington’s novels and short stories have had a strong influence on feminist and fantastic fiction. Constantly entertaining and unpredictable The Hearing Trumpet is infused with warmth and rebellion in equal measures."