"I was very lucky that someone gave me this as my first cookbook. David doesn't give a lot in terms of the recipes - "take a handful and throw it in the pan with some garlic" - so you have to think for yourself. And then you figure it out."

"I trust him as a writer. It was a new book, and I didn't know about the Lusitania. I was totally satisfied when I was finished. It was like I was able to picture a lot of the faces, the passengers, the captain. You could almost see them."

"I was honored to be in this wonderful Denzel Washington movie called The Great Debaters. I liked that movie not just because I was in it, but because I learned a lot from it. I didn’t know about the rich history of all-black colleges back in the 1930s."

"“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.”"