History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions.

There is no communication in this world except between equals.

I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.

In a sense I've made the same film over and over again. In all of them I've asked, 'Who are we as Americans?

I have made all my films for my children with the exception of my first film because my oldest daughter wasn't born when I was making the film about the Brooklyn Bridge.

You don't work on something for six years and be blind to the myriad of other approaches.

I never, ever want to apologize for a film. If it's bad I'll say it's my fault. And that's what I can say so far in all the films that I've done, that if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault.