"One of the most amazing books I ever read was The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. McCullers was southern, and I’m southern. I wonder how much a non-southern person can appreciate some of the nuances that I consider very specific to that part of the country. In the subtlest, most unconscious ways, I’m able to get her description of, I don’t know, humidity in a way that somebody who lives near the Great Lakes will never really know. It was published when McCullers was, what—23 years old? I was still taking hour-long naps when I was 23. How remarkable that she had all that talent at her disposal at that age."

"The only thing wrong about this movie is the terrible haircut Holly Hunter has at the end. Broadcast News is sharp and funny and endlessly quotable—and timelier than ever in this era of both so-called fake news and what feels like the re-emergence of world-changing journalism. I don’t know if I’ve ever related to a fictional character more than I do to Jane, Hunter’s smart, ambitious, flawed uber–Type A producer (who knows when to bust out a therapeutic cry). Add to that William Hurt at his most handsome, a complicated love triangle without a pat ending, the funniest theme-song sequence ever, and cinema’s most iconic polka-dot dress. It’s simply perfect."