“You have to decide what is extraneous and what is central.”

There has always been a tendency – race notwithstanding.

Ultimately a historian has to put together a cohesive work.

There is always more to tell.

It is important for us to remember that black people have been patriotic and have fought for that American dream in every American war.

Women have more often worked within the home, working equally as hard

If you want to have a finished product, at some point you have to say “enough.”

I would argue, but not always out there where they’re counted, not always up there in the labor unions, certainly not in leadership positions.

When we look at women, we have to look at the significance of their work in a different way from the way we look at it with men.

What first intrigued me was this desire to understand my family and put it in the context of American history.

I have to throw in on a personal note that I didn’t like history when I was in high school.

That doesn’t mean that your curiosity is ever totally satisfied.

To believe that women’s contributions have been less important than men’s contributions because women are usually less public people.

For all kinds of reasons, it is more difficult to track women’s lives. Women’s words have simply been considered less important, so they have been preserved less often.

I didn’t study history when I was in college, none at all, and only started to do graduate study when my children were going to graduate school.

And how those stories relate to the larger picture of American history.

I think that one of the ways that Americans will come to want to look at history is by looking at their own families’ histories

Truth, even in the mouth of an informer, a spy, a briber, can become bigger than anybody who tries to destroy it.

I just want to keep the diversity and the options open.

Build health or produce disease in yourself.

Men’s arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

He is gifted with genius who knoweth much by natural inspiration.

We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing (whatever it is) that glitters on the earth– we call it life.

In everything one must consider the end.

I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that as a feature film producer