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.

I read cover to cover every jazz publication that I could and in the New York Times, every single day reading their jazz reviews even though I didn't put them in the films. I wanted to know what is going on.

It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past

You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.

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.

Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.

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.