"It’s not like I didn’t attempt; I couldn’t finish a thought. I would begin something and then stop halfway because I’d think it was meaningless. Gradually, I started to enjoy the process and started to work on these half-baked ideas until I finished baking them." - San Francisco Classical Voice
Likability has always been important in talk-show hosts, but balanced by other virtues like creativity, funniness, political or even journalistic insight, the ability to connect emotionally. - The New York Times
"(His) work exposed L.A.'s social fractures and disquieted its most ardent boosters, and (his) mark on the intellectual history of Southern California remains indelible. ... Though best known for City of Quartz, Davis wrote more than a dozen notable books over his more than four-decade career." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
"The Paper Chase became a sort of pre-law school bible that students read before embarking on a career in law. One of them was Mr. Osborn’s daughter, who enrolled at Harvard Law School in 2003." - MSN (The Washington Post)
"After a late start in his performing career, (he) became a recognizable face from roles on numerous television shows, most notably Will & Grace, then achieved even more fame during the pandemic when his quirky homemade videos attracted millions of Instagram followers." - The New York Times
Pesek was a Czech conductor with a solid if unspectacular career when in 1987 he was appointed chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; the next 11 years brought about not only a transformation in the orchestra’s fortunes, but also in his own standing. - The Telegraph (UK)
Peter was a man of well-developed opinions, on art and much else. He was someone who, after being lost for a time, knew some things about survival. We met more than twenty years ago. - The New Yorker
Schjeldahl was a belletrist as a writer — a once fashionable, now vaguely disreputable genre of fiction, poetry and essay writing with an acute concern for “fine language,” which he, virtually alone, managed to make worthwhile for art criticism during a dense era of academically minded theory. - Los Angeles Times
Nuttall, who also ran the chamber music series at the Spoleto Festival, was a violinist, "a charismatic musician who played boldly," with an "electrifying ability to engage flowed from his deep desire to communicate." - The New York Times
Callil "championed female writers and transformed the canon of English literature," including by bringing many women authors back into print. - The Guardian (UK)
His agent: "He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut. And he has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso. So, it was a brutal attack." - The Guardian (UK)
Melville had just performed at the Nottingham Playhouse in the play Nine Night. She also played a recurring character on the British soap EastEnders and was a director as well as actor. - The Hollywood Reporter
Lucy Simon, 82, was a Tony-nominated Broadway composer; Joanna Simon, 85, was a mezzo-soprano who (according to The New York Times) "stood out for her range of material, mastery of foreign languages and willingness to take risks." - Variety
Schjeldahl was a poet, art lover and sometime artist before he became an art critic. The Fourth of July parties he and wife Brooke Alderson threw were legendary. As a critic, "He was first and foremost a visual pleasure seeker, on the prowl for new thrills." - The New York Times
"A jury sided with Kevin Spacey on Thursday in one of the lawsuits that derailed the film star's career, finding he did not sexually abuse Anthony Rapp, then 14, while both were relatively unknown actors in Broadway plays in 1986. The verdict in the civil trial came with lightning speed." - AP
