World War II is smothered in sentimentality and nostalgia. What's interesting about Vietnam is that sentimentality is just not there, so you're given kind of a clean access to it in one way. It's also a war that represents a failure for the United States. Many people came back feeling like they never wanted to talk about it again. And so we developed a national amnesia.

The only art form that Americans have created that's recognized around the world is jazz music born in a community that had the peculiar experience of being unfree in a free land.

Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means, "God in us."

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's an active disengagement.

Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality.

One of the things I really like about Ford's films is how there is always a focus on the way characters live, and not just the male heroes.

History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.