"I really like songs that are storytelling in a way and The Kinks are great at that. “Waterloo Sunset” in particular sparked a lot of images in my mind about how you write songs and the way that melodies flow. “I think the best songs make you feel a certain way, and it’s a bit more than just the lyric really. The lyrics for “Waterloo Sunset” are brilliant but the song makes you feel like there’s a longing for a lost moment. I love the idea of two people meeting in a crowd, but with the whole atmosphere of the song, as soon as I hear it, I slip back into it and it just overwhelms me. ""There’s also a beautiful lost story within the song, the tale of a city and a river. I read that Ray Davies originally called it “Liverpool Sunset”, from when he was on tour in Liverpool and then later he changed it. “I was pretty obsessed with music from when I was quite young, and I still listen to music an awful lot. I don’t listen to these songs much anymore, but when I hear them, I love them. I think on my musical journey and absorbing that stuff, The Beatles and The Kinks were very much the beginning of it. I’m definitely sticking in an era here!"

"People might question this but Rudderless, which was directed by my husband [William H. Macy]. But I say Rudderless because of two things. One is because of the way the movie was structured, and the way Bill directed it. The audience got to experience in a small way, I think, what parents get to experience when their child does something horrific. That you’re going along with one experience of your child, which is, “He or she is like this, and this is the kind of person they are, and I love them dearly.” And then they do some horrific, incomprehensible action and it pulls the rug out from under you. And Bill did that and the movie Rudderless does that; it pulls a rug out from under you. Your breath gets knocked out of you, you go, “[Gasp].” And suddenly you are reevaluating Billy Crudup’s relationship with his son from a completely different perspective and, again, I just think that’s masterful storytelling. The other reason is Billy Crudup’s performance. And, acting with Billy Crudup, I mean, what, did I do two scenes with him, maybe three? It really changed the target for me. I went, “Oh that’s what good acting is.” Really, and it really informed my work on American Crime. So for me it was a clinic on great acting. So for those two reasons."

"Like many people I was stunned and saddened when the world lost Tony Horwitz. I had met Tony and his wife, Geraldine Brooks, at several book functions over the years, and I marveled at his comingling of journalism and storytelling, as he traveled the world in search of knowledge. I was introduced to Horwitz, as many were, with Confederates in the Attic. In this, unfortunately his last book, Horwitz travels the south again as he traces the footsteps of Frederick Law Olmsted, who would find fame and fortune as a landscape architect, with perhaps his crowning glory being Central Park in New York. Horwitz travels throughout the south and talks to people from all walks of life in an effort to figure out what has changed in America, or if it’s always been so divided. And if there is a pathway forward to forge a national consensus on anything. Like Bill Bryson has done in his travels, and Mark Twain did well over a century before, Horwitz has not simply written a book chronicling his journey, he has opened the heart of America, its majesty and its darkness for all to see. We all will miss Tony Horwitz and what he has brought to our collective conscience. If you’ve never read him, this would be an ideal place to start."