Laura Hillenbrand Quotes

Documentary people have to know that, particularly nowadays, they have to be on a mission. And part of the mission is to - is to be like good journalists: search for the truth, have an open mind, listen to as much as you can of different sides of things.

I'm not necessarily scanning for clues when I make documentaries.

When I read period material - and it ain't on Google - I am always alert for that one incredible detail. I'll read a whole book and get three words out of it, but they'll be three really good words.

History, like journalism, is ever a journey outwards, and you must report back what you find and no more.

I often tell people who want to write historical fiction: don't read all that much about the period you're writing about; read things from the period that you're writing about. There's a tendency to stoke up on a lot of biography and a lot of history, and not to actually get back to the original sources.

I started reading the big histories and the small histories, the memoirs and so forth. At some point, I found the diary of William E. Dodd.

You should bear in mind that almost all my documentaries are feature films in disguise.

I just write the sort of book that I would enjoy reading myself, a book that is both scholarly and recreates the experience of people at that time.

I'm a documentary filmmaker by training. You got to start with the real people and the real place.

I don't give you editorial control. I want to meet you. I want to interview everybody who's ever known you. I want to see your correspondence. I want to see your bank statements. But you will have no control over what I write. That's why I really believe in the unauthorized biography.

I've played journalists before, and I have good friends who are journalists. I think being an actor is not very far from being a journalist. Because you investigate, you try to understand, you're asking questions, you're interested in the other.

But I can say what interests me about documentary is the fact that you don't know how the story ends at the onset - that you are investigating, with a camera, and the story emerges as you go along.

The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.

I don't separate my books into historical novels and the rest. To me, they're all made-up worlds, and both kinds are borne out of curiosity, some investigation into the past.

I'm trying to finish my book on the Kennedy assassination.

To be a good researcher is to be a good detective, and I enjoy ferreting out tidbits of information. For a diary book like 'A Coal Miner's Bride,' newspapers come in handy for small everyday details such as weather reports.

What I love - and I'm a journalist - and what I love is finding hidden patterns; I love being a data detective.

That's why I have always admired documentaries, because they open windows that can make you understand much better where you come from, much better than fiction, I think.

Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.

If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective.

I like historical things; I like researching things.

My stuff always starts with interviews. I start interviewing people, and then slowly but surely, a movie insinuates itself.

Unlike fiction, which you create before you go into production, with reality you kind of create it after everything is produced. The drama and the storytelling is really done in post.

I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.

I see film as a real opportunity to examine the human condition. No matter where the technology goes in the future, the basics don't change. Storytelling is a primitive tribal function. The elders sat around the fires and told these stories as a way to pass on the 'dos' and the 'don'ts.' That will never change.