People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story". — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions. — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time. — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now. — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about… — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist. I've chosen to work in history the way someone might choose to work in still lifes… — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being. — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are. — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even… — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
The reason why you do history, and particularly why you do war, is that you want to make sure that in the… — Ken Burns Copy Share Image
Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being. — Ken Burns Copy Share
Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality. — Ken Burns Copy Share
The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts. — Ken Burns Copy Share
The reason why you do history, and particularly why you do war, is that you want to make sure that in the next war,… — Ken Burns Copy Share
In a sense I've made the same film over and over again. In all of them I've asked, 'Who are we as Americans? — Ken Burns Copy Share
I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived.… — Ken Burns Copy Share
Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what… — Ken Burns Copy Share
History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are. — Ken Burns Copy Share
We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to… — Ken Burns Copy Share
It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn. — Ken Burns Copy Share
“Jackie Robinson stole home and he's safe."...Nobody could hurt him again. He wouldn't hear the name-calling. He would only hear the cheers and somehow… — Ken Burns Copy Share
I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible amount of… — Ken Burns Copy Share
You know, you meet some people, and do a lot of interviews, and you come across a Buck O'Neill and you know you are… — Ken Burns Copy Share
