Quote

Mennonites are very conservative. They don't drink, dance, smoke, go to movies. I grew up in a very conservative faith-based community.

I would never want to deny my Mennonite background and culture; I'll always feel like and be identified as a Mennonite and therefore possess that little extra authority on our beliefs. I also see myself as a Canadian writer.

I grew up in southwestern Ontario in the heart of a Mennonite community. All my family are part of the Mennonite church.

My mother's people are Old Order Mennonite - horse and buggy Mennonite, very close cousins to the Amish. I grew up in Lancaster County and lived near Amish farm land.

What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.

I was in a profession that received a lot of media.

I grew up in a town where there were no galleries, no museums, no theaters - a very religious, ultraconservative community.

I've written a lot of books in my time, and to write a book about Joe McCarthy and have some of the major media paying attention, I'm not used to that.

I'm not making films for middle aged journalists, who are mostly men. I make films that hopefully entertain people, where they can learn something about life.