I want my children to have access to something that looks beyond what I call the tyranny of now. You read the paper, everyone talks about that thing [in the news] that day, and all the subconscious really important stuff that's going on is being neglected. The beauty of history is that historians have the ability to find patterns, the big picture. When you make a movie, you try to find that. I'm doing in the cinema what historians try to do in their own media.

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

One of the joys of going to the movies was that it was trashy, and we should never lose that.

We're all divided, but some of us have children, and we are invested in the future and would like to see good things happen.

I couldn't despise a man more than George W. Bush.

I'm a history person; I love history. But I am conditioned by the present.

JFK was leading the world, leading the United States into a new position with the Soviet Union. He was calling for the end of the Cold War. He would have been reelected in 1964 because he was vastly popular.