You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.

I am passionately interested in understanding how my country works. And if you want to know about this thing called the United States of America you have to know about the Civil War.

We're having a hard time understanding where jazz is going. What happened to jazz?

I read cover to cover every jazz publication that I could and in the New York Times, every single day reading their jazz reviews even though I didn't put them in the films. I wanted to know what is going on.

It's pretty easy for me to say that the most important thing in my life is my relationship with Jesus Christ, followed by my relationship with family. And football's later on down the line.

My mother and father are still together after forty something years. I lived in one place till I was 6. I lived in another place from when I was 6 till I was 17.

My father married out of the family. I also married outside the family.

I come from an orthodox Muslim family.