I put headlights in Ford vans. I still drive a Ford.

I'm proud of 'Miracle at St. Anna' and I loved it; there's no question in my mind it's as good as any movie that came out in 2007.

I'm trying to educate people about things that I believe are right, and some of the things that I believe are right might not be right, so I live in constant self-doubt. I think that creates a kind of search that you have to have, and it prevents you from doing a lot of stuff that you would normally do.

The act of choosing what to place in your piece when you're a historian or a non-fiction writer already renders it into fiction for someone else. In some ways fiction comes a lot closer to reality. When you start talking about something as brutal as slavery and life in the American West, it's really important to take a non- judgmental stance. We romanticize a great deal about life in the American West, but I thank God I wasn't living during that time. No matter what color you were, it was rough, crude, tough living.

I wish all critics, no matter their color, were more sophisticated when it comes to the moral questions a film like 'St. Anna' is trying to raise.

I'd like to do something involving jazz. But books are how I earn my living, and I'd like to stay with the horse I rode in on.

It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. I always felt that way about the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets.