Ken Burns Past Quotations

We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to provide these sanctuaries, so that people may be in the presence of forces larger than those of the moment.

I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.

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

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

It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past