"“I’m lucky to have spent my childhood in the Middle Ages, or, as Huysmans described it, that ‘painful and exquisite’ epoch—painful in terms of its material aspects, perhaps, but exquisite in its spiritual life. What a contrast to the world of today!” Luis Buñuel always reminds us of what we’re constantly losing in this rotten society."

"I first saw it on TV, one Easter Sunday. I was nine or ten, sick in bed. It made my convalescence so much sweeter (just like the old Lubitsch touch). I also remember Chronique d’Anna Magdalena Bach by Huillet and Straub being aired on a Christmas Day! If you’re this lucky, you’re hooked for life (imagine watching these films on TV nowadays)."

"She’s the children’s writer with whom I most identify. She said, ‘By some lucky chance, I remember exactly how I felt and thought at 11.’ That struck a chord with me. The Story of the Treasure Seekers was a breakthrough children’s book. Oswald is such a very real narrator, at a time when most people were writing morality plays for children."