"Quintessential Spike Lee. Brooklyn. Hottest day of the year. This film defined a generation of filmmakers and artists that followed. For me, as an artist growing up in New York, Spike Lee was an inspiration. He showed us it could be done."

"Truly, anything Roald Dahl. We read them all the time growing up. Just the right mix of absurdity and sweetness. Right now, as a father I’m feeling Danny, Champion of the World as it is a lovely insight into the father/son relationship."

"This is a nuanced and powerful novel about growing up, the mother-daughter relationship, female identity, sexuality, cultural dissonance, privilege, poverty and the pernicious legacy of colonialism. Kincaid’s style is both immediate and headily intense. A glinting, multifaceted work within relatively so few pages."

"A wonderful story about growing up with a severely limited, yet fascinating and eccentric family. It's very funny and sad and most of the scenes are unforgettable. Some of them are so hard to believe—but they're real—and that makes the story even richer."

"Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, not the new one, the old one. The cartoon Alice in Wonderland is high on my list. Alice is my favorite. I grew up in Orlando, Florida, and my dad worked for Disney. So growing up, I actually had the Alice dress, and I had long blonde hair and blue eyes, and so I looked just like her."