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

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.

There are no ordinary lives.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

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?

When you are editing, the final master is Aristotle and his poetics. You might have a terrific episode, but if people are falling out because there are just too many elements in it, you have to begin to get rid of things.

I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now.