Quote

I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.

Ken Burns

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ken Burns
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: July 29
Actor
Cinematographer
Film Director
Film Producer
Manufacturer
Producer
Screenwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Kenneth Lauren Burns
Kenneth L. Burns
Kenneth Burns
Cogent
History
Precise
Quantifiable
Facts
Collections
Malleable
Truth
Realization
Confidently
Certain
Add
Commencement
Come
Fixed
Even
Mysterious
Quotes
Thing
Events
Dates
Known
Collection

More quotes by Ken Burns

Image
History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.
Ken Burns
Image
I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible amount of technique they have. But there's very little that I think satisfies you intellectually or emotionally.
Ken Burns
Image
I think the problem with a lot of the fusion music is that its extremely predictable, its a rock rhythm and the solos all play the same stuff and they play it over and over again and theres a certain musical virtuosity involved in it.
Ken Burns
Image
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.
Ken Burns
Image
The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.
Ken Burns
Image
Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what Einstein is to physics.
Ken Burns
Image
Do something that will last and be beautiful. It doesn't have to be a bridge-or a symphony or book or a business. It could be the look in the eye of a child you raise or a simple garden you tend. Do something that will last and be beautiful.
Ken Burns
Image
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 or landscapes.
Ken Burns
Image
Wynton told us that Miles sold out, just wanted to make more money, just wanted to sell more records. I don't believe that Miles sold out but I'm not in a position to say.
Ken Burns
Image
Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.
Ken Burns
Image
I never, ever want to apologize for a film. If it's bad I'll say it's my fault. And that's what I can say so far in all the films that I've done, that if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault.
Ken Burns
Image
I have made all my films for my children with the exception of my first film because my oldest daughter wasn't born when I was making the film about the Brooklyn Bridge.
Ken Burns
Image
You don't work on something for six years and be blind to the myriad of other approaches.
Ken Burns
Image
I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.
Ken Burns
Image
It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past
Ken Burns
Image
I don't think that there has been a film that I've done that hasn't been influenced by libraries and archives.
Ken Burns
Image
By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.
Ken Burns
Image
We all think that an exception is going to be made in our case and were going to live forever. Being a human is actually arriving at the understanding that thats not going to be. Story is there to remind us that its just OK.
Ken Burns
Image
There are no ordinary lives.
Ken Burns
Image
In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel.
Ken Burns