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

Unfortunately, I never played an instrument. I can't blame my parents, but I wish I had had music lessons. It's odd because I think I have a good sense of rhythm, as they say in some fields. But I don't know anything about music.

In moviemaking, you learn to pay attention to detail, because so much is in the detail. And when you're shooting, you try to be very alert to what's going on, even if you're tired.

A lot of the issues of rhythm in film are found in the editing because it's very rare that any sequence is the sequence that is shot.

I'm drawn to making movies about contemporary life. The reason I choose institutions is because they provide a limit, a boundary.

I'm in no way suggesting that I succeed, but it's inspiring to read somebody who does succeed and from whom, in a general way, you can draw examples and nourishment and sustenance.

It's rare in a documentary film that you have a repetitive act. So when you do, you can shoot it in different ways so that you have more choices when you're sitting down to edit that sequence six months later.