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The John Ford pictures I made are highly regarded, but at the time they didn't seem like that.

Within the narrow confines of Permanent Washington - the journalists, lobbyists, and congressional lifers who are the city's avatars of centrism and continuity - Ford is considered the beau ideal of American leadership.

It's hard not to think of Jack Ford when you're making a Western. Hard not to think of him when you're making any picture.

I will say that the environment I grew up in was not the most progressive.

Most Americans have no memory of the designs Franklin Roosevelt's New Dealers had for postwar-American foreign policy. Human rights, self-determination and an end to European colonization in the developing world, nuclear disarmament, international law, the World Court, the United Nations - these were all ideas of the progressive left.

Progressives want a different sort of media than what the Right wants.

Tom Ford does everything perfect.

The automotive corporations, including Ford, I think are in the business of trying to make cars that people will drive.

The more film I watch, the more John Ford looks like a giant. His politics aren't so good, and you have to learn to accept John Wayne as an actor, but he's a poet in black and white.

I think a few pictures at a time.