Making movies is an effort is an attempt to leave a trace of your existence.

Documentary filmmaking ruins you for real life, because you learn to be extremely attentive.

My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

My job as a film editor is to construct a dramatic narrative because otherwise it's just a chaotic arrangement of sequences.

Anybody whose mind is functioning at all can't be content with the way the world works.

I'm too busy to be nostalgic, which is one of the reasons to keep busy. I'm not a very sentimental person.

One's relationship to time is complicated, and sometimes a day will drag on forever and sometimes it'll be over in a flash. When you look back, "I'm old," after 40 or 60 years, I can't believe I'm as old as I am.