Ken Burns

Could I have done this?

Could I have killed somebody else?

Would I be willing to die for a cause, to give up all of my good fortune for a cause?

And then you're beginning to approach

but not necessarily make the decisions that were made in every family, in every community, in every colony to become a state, to become a union, to become the United States of America.

Thank you, Terry.

Thank you.

It's my pleasure, thank you.

Right.

All of it.

All of it.

You know, it's the public broadcasting service.

It's the Declaration of Independence applied to communications, just as the national parks, you could say, was the Declaration of Independence applied to the landscape.

Like manifestations of really American things.

It may not seem obvious to us, but it seemed obvious to me that that's where I should go.

So I had lots of

You know, I headed for the hills out of New York, you know, 46 years ago because I thought I was taking a vow of anonymity and poverty to do this stuff.

And I lived in the same house that I've lived in since then, in the same bedroom for 46 years in this tiny little village in New Hampshire.

And when the first film was nominated for an Academy Award, that was a film called Brooklyn Bridge.

Everybody said, oh, you're coming back to New York.