"I loved Olive first time around, and I love her even more as she beats back increasing old age with sarcasm, rage, and a noble, unflinching honesty. I live in Maine, as Olive does. I’d give anything to hear her thoughts of the hoarding of toilet paper. I don’t think for a minute she’d welcome any overture of friendship from me, even in these tough times; still, I admire her for her caustic and courageous observations. I wanted this book to go on and on."

"Okay. You know — it is a recent acquisition for me — but I’m way into the Wes Anderson stuff. Anytime The Royal Tenenbaums is on, I am camped out. People are like, “Is that your favorite?” I think it might be. Also, I do concede, that might have been the first Wes Anderson movie I saw. I love everything about all of his movies. They are so good. They are so stylized. They’re beautiful to look at. I’m always a fan of whichever new one is coming out."

"An amazing film. I fell in love with Cassavetes when I first came across him with Husbands, but I can’t watch his films anymore because it seems like there’s a bunch of actors showing off in front of a shaky camera, whereas Pialat’s À nos amours has aged well. It has an austerity and a real sense of danger about it. It makes you feel the pain of being alive quite viscerally. His more formal and pictorial Van Gogh is also difficult to forget."

"I think when you're looking back at someone's career, it's very easy to appreciate all the different stops along the way. Dylan is one of the first people that I discovered as a teenager, who really changed my life and made me want to make music. People are only starting to love the records from Dylan's religious phase, but 'Pressing On' was a big reference for the new record because of the choir. Obviously, that's a very holy sound, and we wanted to create something similar."