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I don't think I'll ever lose the feeling that I had when I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - Harper Lee was going back into her childhood. I grew up in a real small town - Lee's was in the South, mine the Northwest - but small towns have a lot in common. There was such a revelation in knowing that a story could be told like that.

When I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' I was so struck by the universality of small towns.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' was so important because it was such adult film-making - to see something that dealt with such an important issue and had such an enlightened outlook on the world.

I would come, many years later, to understand why 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is considered 'an important novel', but when I first read it at 11, I was simply absorbed by the way it evoked the mysteries of childhood, of treasures discovered in trees, and games played with an exotic summer friend.

I took it upon myself to paint a better picture of rural life and what it is all about.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' represents Hollywood at its very finest, when a popular film could truly contain a message. It has one of the most moving scores of all time.

I have 'To Kill A Mockingbird' signed by Harper Lee. That is my prized possession.

In 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' I was just playing and having a good time.

One of the problems with the fiasco of suburbia is that it destroyed our understanding of the distinction between the country and the town, between the urban and the rural. They're not the same thing.

Well not really to get attention, but to entertain, but you know to show some elements of rural life as well, it kind of blended all in, its kind of like a mockery in a sense, kind of stab back at people that have those stereotypical ideas of the south.