A documentary film is a great way of helping people understand because, somehow, when one is able to see the people involved, it lends a certain immediacy and understanding that is hard to get on the page.

Our intelligence community was extremely poorly prepared before 9/11.

I guess I made a resolution years ago that I would only do things that were only really important or really fun.

I spent two years in Cairo, and I felt a certain urgency about trying to understand the region and the conflict here, in the modest way that a journalist might be able to try and shed some understanding and enlightenment on a region that is profoundly conflicted, and a conflict that has real consequences for Americans.

I've carved a different path which is not that affected by what happens in the bad side of politics. I've always surrounded myself with music and art and love and all those things - pleasures that are sort of immune from all that.

If you have decisions taken from time to time at the level of the executives, which gives the impression of being discriminatory, if you are not open when government is functioning, then obviously people will make allegations.

I don't want my marriage or my guns registered in Washington. And if people have an opinion, it's a religious opinion that is heartly felt, obviously they should be allowed to practice that, and no government should interfere with them.

We need to remember that politics is all about people, not programs. We shouldn't want to take the humanness out of the political arena.