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.

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

We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to provide these sanctuaries, so that people may be in the presence of forces larger than those of the moment.

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

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story".

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