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.

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.

World War II is smothered in sentimentality and nostalgia. What's interesting about Vietnam is that sentimentality is just not there, so you're given kind of a clean access to it in one way. It's also a war that represents a failure for the United States. Many people came back feeling like they never wanted to talk about it again. And so we developed a national amnesia.

I think my expectations for myself are much more severe and much more direct. You can't work on a film for six years without being your own toughest critic. So you can't really be distracted by the expectations based on your previous performance.

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

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

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.