I've always wondered where explanations end and excuses begin.

We falsely interpret the world around us. We ignore evidence that doesn't support our prior beliefs and we convince ourselves we know things we don. We think we know things we don't know.

It was assumed that you can't touch evangelical Christians. "Oh, they're the Republican Right. Stay away from those people. Don't even try to talk to them." Well, what's interesting is that there were evangelical Christians who were voting for Kerry. There were right-to-lifers who were voting for Kerry. And it's interesting to listen to the reasons why. To ignore that segment of the electorate is moronic. Particularly if you don't know who those people are, or what their concerns are.

If someone tells you that George Bush is not the 43rd president of the United States, they might be engaged in wishful thinking, or denial, but if they make that claim, it's either true or false! And you can assess that, regardless of whether there's an omniscient narrator, or an unreliable narrator, or it's shot in vérité, or it's manipulated, it's agitprop, whatever! It makes no difference! It's a style!

A movie is like a tip of an iceberg, in a way, because so little of what you do in connection with making a movie actually gets into the movie. Almost everything gets left behind.

War is such a peculiar thing - inaugurated by the whims of few, affecting the fate of many. It is difficult, if not impossible, thing to understand, yet we feel compelled to describe it as though it has meaning - even virtue. It starts for reasons often hopelessly obscure, meanders on, then stops

I'm one simple way I think I've succeeded was capturing Elsa [Dorfman]. There's something about Elsa, her personality, and her work that I believe is there.