Quotes By Ken Burns

The stories from 1975 on are not finished and there is no resolve. I could spend 50 hours on the last 25 years of jazz and still not do it justice.

I have made all my films for my children with the exception of my first film because my oldest daughter wasn't born when I was making the film about the Brooklyn Bridge.

History's just been made for sale to an inside deal.

I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible amount of technique they have. But there's very little that I think satisfies you intellectually or emotionally.

I don't use composers. I research music the way I research the photographs or the facts in my scripts.

I think my expectations for myself are much more severe and much more direct. You can't work on a film for six years without being your own toughest critic. So you can't really be distracted by the expectations based on your previous performance.

You don't work on something for six years and be blind to the myriad of other approaches.

I am passionately interested in understanding how my country works. And if you want to know about this thing called the United States of America you have to know about the Civil War.

Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.