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Exlpore more Lifestyle quotes

"I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give."

"Social media has given us this idea that we should all have a posse of friends when in reality, if we have one or two really good friends, we are lucky."

"Once I got home, though, and saw several packages on my front porch, all the crap from the day disappeared. A few had smiley faces on them. Squealing, I grabbed the boxes. Books were inside-- new release books I'd preordered weeks ago."

"It's better to develop hobbies and interests than to have ideas about things."

"On gray days, when it's snowing or raining, I think you should be able to call up a judge and take an oath that you'll just read a good book all day, and he'd allow you to stay home."

"Alcohol does not solve problems but becomes a problem in itself."
Explore more quotes by Ken Burns

"I never, ever want to apologize for a film. If it's bad I'll say it's my fault. And that's what I can say so far in all the films that I've done, that if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault."

"History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions."

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

"I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content."

"You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time."

"You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living."

"When you are editing, the final master is Aristotle and his poetics. You might have a terrific episode, but if people are falling out because there are just too many elements in it, you have to begin to get rid of things."

"I treat the photograph as a work of great complexity in which you can find drama. Add to that a careful composition of landscapes, live photography, the right music and interviews with people, and it becomes a style."

"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."
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