Like a layer on a pearl, you can't specifically identify the irritant, the moment of the irritant, but at the end of the day, you know you have a pearl.

By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.

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

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

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.

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

I don't think that there has been a film that I've done that hasn't been influenced by libraries and archives.