I think we continually need to understand how important an event the war was - how defining, how central to who we are. Everything that came before it led up to it, and everything of importance to this country - at least up to 1940 - was a consequence of it. Even now there's an echo of the war, however faint, in almost everyone's life.

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.

It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's an active disengagement.

In a sense I've made the same film over and over again. In all of them I've asked, 'Who are we as Americans?

It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past

The reason why you do history, and particularly why you do war, is that you want to make sure that in the next war, some lessons were learned. There's a saying: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Or Ecclesiastes: "What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again." Human nature always superimposes itself - its strength and its frailty over the rush of chaos of ongoing events - and we can perceive patterns and themes and motifs.