You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time.

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

When you are editing, the final master is Aristotle and his poetics. You might have a terrific episode, but if people are falling out because there are just too many elements in it, you have to begin to get rid of things.

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.

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.

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.

I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.