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

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

I think I have an obligation, to the people who have consented to be in the film, to make a film that is fair to their experience. The editing of my films is a long and selective process. I do feel that when I cut a sequence, I have an obligation to the people who are in it, to cut it so that it fairly represents what I felt was going on at the time, in the original event. I don't try and cut it to meet the standards of a producer or a network or a television show.

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

I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover for myself.

Even if I know I'm going to go to a church, I don't know what the minister's going to say.

I'm interested in ordinary experience, and regardless of the precise definition of ordinary, and I've found that in so-called ordinary experience, there is as much comedy, tragedy, sadness, as there is in great drama. And I don't invent it, I recognize it.