"The first novel that messed me up. I’ve read it so many times—first in my late teens, when I was in my full horror fan mode. In Ireland, where I lived, there was no such thing as a streetlight, so you looked outside and your own imagination would decide what was there. But there was something about the descriptions of the Bramford, the apartment that Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into, that was my first descriptive explanation of New York living. Way before I saw the movie, the story leapt off the page."

"In my teens I got to know García Lorca’s poems in Icelandic translations. I was instantly fascinated by their dramatic tales of tragic loves, their intense night visions and images of human and botanic flowers. Infused with a surrealist use of metaphor, folkloric energy derived from flamenco and the Arabic heritage of al-Andaluz, Lorca’s poems reach deep into the ancient origin of soul while flashing with modern wit and bravery. Wonders happen when the poet travels over the Atlantic and tests his poetic tools in the New World."