I think it's hard for people to suspend the era they live in and understand the decisions that had to be made often during the western frontier era were life and death. You had to be resourceful and on your feet to try to figure out somebody. You didn't have the benefit of knowing who somebody was.

You're just as good, and if you work harder, you can be better and you can be more than you think you can.

When you draw a western correctly, you create such drama, such dilemma that you think you almost don't want to admit who you might have been.

Sometimes we worry about the things that you know that matter the least and don't focus on the things that matter the most.

Conventional wisdom is so scary because what if everybody's wrong?

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.

We recognize ourselves in Westerns, ... I believe the Western can orchestrate moments around reality. The reality can be as entertaining to us as the lie.