In my decade or so as a writer, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people. Many brilliant. Most interesting. And a lot with insights I’d never have come to myself. But there are a few whose brief appearance in my life has, for some reason, stuck. Here are some of the people whose words and ideas come back to me most often, and at strange times (in alphabetical order):

Billy Collins on in-flight poetry

Junot Diaz on nuclear blasts

Niall Ferguson on empire

Elizabeth Gilbert on the one story that can stop your heart

Pico Iyer on the noosphere.

David Lynch on chicken heads.

Chuck Palahniuk on pushing the river (sadly, not online)

Richard Rodriquez on how only further confusion can save us

George Saunders (and here) on Hemingway and off pissing roosters

Binyavanga Wainaina on finding hope in small things (also not online)

There are others too, but ten is ten.