I don't want to make a half-assed film. It's not my area of expertise.

In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret. Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity - and it was an atrocity.

I have the right to interpretation as a dramatist. I research. It's my responsibility to find the research. It's my responsibility to digest it and do the best that I can with it. But at a certain point that responsibility will become an interpretation.

Concepts of integrity and heroism and honor are still important to the world today. Some people behave well, and some people behave badly.

When you look at the global situation, if America learned to be one of the many countries in the world and to find its way to cooperate with people and bring a global peace that could bring great prosperity to this globe, there is still a chance of that, and that's a big lesson from history. We are not paying attention to that.

People are still living in the moment, and they feel the passion of now.

I think you can maintain two tracks. I think you have to. That's what this kind of filmmaking is about. If you're not aware of the limitations of what you're up against... it's like a general: you have to know your artillery and you have to know your infantry. You have to know what you have. You have to marshal your forces and use them well. It comes down to the personal and the intimate, but at the same time you have to have the big picture.