Ken Burns

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

— Ken Burns

Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality.

— Ken Burns

By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.

— Ken Burns

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

— Ken Burns

The reason why you do history, and particularly why you do war, is that you want to make sure that in the…

— Ken Burns

In a sense I've made the same film over and over again. In all of them I've asked, 'Who are we as…

— Ken Burns

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not…

— Ken Burns

Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say…

— Ken Burns

People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story".

— Ken Burns

History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.

— Ken Burns

We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these…

— Ken Burns

It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.

— Ken Burns

“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…

— Ken Burns

I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible…

— Ken Burns

You know, you meet some people, and do a lot of interviews, and you come across a Buck O'Neill and you know…

— Ken Burns

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

— Ken Burns

“War is essentially dehumanising'. 'It's trying to portray your enemy as less human than you are'.”

— Ken Burns

We're having a hard time understanding where jazz is going. What happened to jazz?

— Ken Burns

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

I enjoy total creative control right now. Nobody tells me to make it longer, shorter, better, sexier, more violent, whatever.

— Ken Burns

A jazz beat is a dynamic changing rhythm.

— Ken Burns

I think the problem with a lot of the fusion music is that its extremely predictable, its a rock rhythm and the…

— Ken Burns

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but human nature remains the same.”

— Ken Burns

I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even…

— Ken Burns

We all think that an exception is going to be made in our case and were going to live forever. Being a…

— Ken Burns