“For the casual viewer, Kurosawa’s films can be an exercise in endurance.”

“This book, for me, is less an exercise in recall than exorcism.”

“I had no way of anticipating the adjustments I would have to make and the suffering I would have to endure in the months and years ahead.”

“America today remembers its history through visual imagery. Film, print, and electronic media are very capital intensive, which means that most Americans are consumers, not producers, of the images through which they remember.”

“I asked him what he thought of the Great Lakes now. I'm surprised at how much seamanship is required to sail them. I always thought they were for wussies, that only the oceans were worthy of tough guys like me. But in the ocean there's not much to hit, it mostly requires endurance. These lakes can kick your ass.”

“No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen.”

“Opiates are, by their very nature, about forgetting. When you're in that narcotic haze, memory functions like some mutant projector, a hell-tuned Bell & Howard. As the film goes in one end, at the other end it's immediately eaten by some kind of acid, dissolving the second the events transpire.”