Movies become living organisms that graduate from a filmmaker's sphere of influence and pretty much look back and tell you how they need to be said goodbye to. A movie often turns around and looks at you and says, "Here is who I am, and that's maybe now how you see me, but that's who I've become." And you've got to be open enough to go with that.

I made 'Saving Private Ryan' for my father. He's the one who filled my head with war stories when I was growing up.

The best time of my life has been the three instances where I have been there for the birth of my children. That is, nothing [else] has ever come close.

I really trust the authenticity of real people and my job is to get them to be themselves in front of the camera. Often what happens is, you'll get a newcomer in front of the camera and they'll freeze up or they imitate actors or other performances that they've admired and so they stop becoming themselves. And so my job as the director is just to always return them to what I first saw in them, which was simply an uncensored human being.

I compose the frame literally with the camera. Unless it makes a story point.

He never gave up. And he does that for us

Documentaries are the first line of education, and the second line of education is dramatization, such as 'The Pacific'.