The past assumes the nature of the present.

I study history in order to give an interpretation.

People will go to clean theaters; they don't like to go to dirty theaters.

A life like Nixon's is filled with shame and filled with glory. He loved to quote Teddy Roosevelt: "He was a man; sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but he was a man." I love that line.

If you make the movie from your heart and it stands over time, that's what matters to me.

I've been to war, and it's not easy to kill. It's bloody and messy and totally horrifying, and the consequences are serious.

It's very important to understand that World War II is at the base of this new policy. From the 1890s on, the U.S. was always imperialistic. We went after the Philippines, and we did the same in Cuba, in Hawaii. We controlled South America. Woodrow Wilson was not what he was supposed to be. He was very much a white man first. "The world must be made safe for democracy." It really accelerates after World War II.