Do something that will last and be beautiful. It doesn't have to be a bridge-or a symphony or book or a business. It could be the look in the eye of a child you raise or a simple garden you tend. Do something that will last and be beautiful.

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

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

I enjoy total creative control right now. Nobody tells me to make it longer, shorter, better, sexier, more violent, whatever.

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

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

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.