Robert Redford Quotes

He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.

When did Noah build the boat? - Before the rain.

I remember my dad came from Ireland and Scotland, and so he carried with him the fear of poverty. So when I wanted to break loose, it kind of made him very nervous.

I am a cynical optimist. Big opening weekends are like cotton candy. The films you will remember over time are the films that stick in the consciousness of the audience in a good way.

Now is not the time to repudiate environmental balance, but rather it is the time for all of us to work together - politician, advocate, rancher, scientist, and citizen. Only by doing this will the United States move forward and be a leader in environmental issues and ensure sustainability to our delicate ecosystem.

Well first of all it's a business and it's a tough business, and you have to have the strength to survive all the set backs all the failures that make this a mean business, that's getting meaner and meaner every year in my opinion.

I have the freedom to take chances, to say no. I have the freedom to be who I really want to be, rather than have to conform to this or that just to stay alive.

I don't see myself as beautiful. I was a kid who was freckle-faced, and they used to call me 'hay head.'

There is nothing I can do about this stuff and I am pretty well ok with the fact that I think Sundance is not going to be stopped by it, because he Festival is itself now, and doesn't need me out there to talk about it like I did years ago.

Curiously, directing my own films have made me more tolerant and patient. I've always been an extremely impatient actor. Waiting around drove me nuts. But now I'm much more sympathetic to a director's struggle.

When I became successful, I put up a caution. I didn't think it was fair to have the shadow of that kind of success thrown on my family. And I was cautious about being taken by things that could destroy you.

As an artist I just can't think of a better life than the one I've been blessed with. It's just a great ride.

Once you leave Sundance suddenly you run into bulldozers and concrete and cranes, and all that heritage that the Mormon culture used to be so proud of is turned into out of control develpoment.

Celebrity is a big part of the American social system. I'm certainly grateful for what it's done for me, but I do think that celebrity is overdone in our society. I think it's got a dangerous side to it.

Have a strong vision about the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it.

When I started, I was an artist; I wanted to be an artist. I became an actor almost by accident. I acted for fifteen years and tried to produce. I looked for stories that were the story beneath the story that you thought you knew, like 'The Candidate'.

The measure of our success will be the condition on which we leave the world for the next generation.

I have a very low regard for cynics. I think it's the beginning of dying.

The art of making a film and its content are far more interesting to me than the result or impact.

There's a lot of money to be made by strip-mining and drilling the dirtiest oil on the planet. But why should the rest of us pay the price?

He's meant to be that classic Homer, Ulysses, Hercules - a character who goes out or has some gift of some kind. He goes on a journey of discovery and part of that is falling into darkness - the temptations of life.

The meter is ticking [particularly in the face of climate change], so you've got to get to as much as you can as fast as you can. I grew up with 'This Land Is Our Land,' and public land doesn't belong to that administration or this one. We want our kids to grow up with real natural places, not just photos of them.

When I was a kid, nobody told me I was good-looking. I wish they had. I would've had a better time.

When you get older, you learn certain life lessons. You apply that wisdom, and suddenly you say, 'Hey, I've got a new lease on this thing. So let's go.'

Well there's these things called books.... They are like TV for smart people.

I'm fascinated by journalism. I put a keen eye, not a negative eye, on its role, particularly how it is changed by the times we're living in.

Golf has become so manicured, so perfect. The greens, the fairways. I don't like golf carts. I like walking. Some clubs won't let you in unless you have a caddy and a cart.

I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?

I have no regrets, because I've done everything I could to the best of my ability.

Water is the sleeping giant issue of the 21st century and we all need to wake up about it.

Storytellers broaden our minds: engage, provoke, inspire, and ultimately, connect us.

I guess some mistakes you never stop paying for.

I,believe, as do so many of my fellow Americans, that the wild horse is an irreplaceable national treasure. It would be a tragic mistake to allow this noble creature to disappear from our western landscape."
– Robert Redford

The focus of entertainment is taking away from what the public needs as news. I think investigative journalism will always be important and always find its way, be it on the Internet or wherever.

The big moment for me was making 'All the President's Men'. It was not about Watergate or President Nixon. I wanted to focus on something I thought not many people knew about: How do journalists get the story?

Be careful of success; it has a dark side.

I look at going to Hollywood as going behind enemy lines. You parachute in, set up the explosion, then fly out before it goes off.

As an actor and as a person you come together with being in familiar territory although that has not been my whole life. That's been a part of it. I think a lot of people associate me with the west because of Sundance.

Times change; Hollywood is not the same as it was when I first entered the business. It felt to me like it was starting to narrow down and centralize itself around what would ... make money.

I work because I want to work. Work keeps me going.

I think a lot of people thought my career started with Butch Cassidy.

In fact you've got your hands tied behind your back when somebody chooses to take a low road in to you, there is nothing you can do about it, and so you just live with it and move on.

You should prepare when you go to a public event to be public. That's when I will sign autographs. But not when you're going about your normal business.

All of the films that I've made are about the country I live in and grew up in ... And I think if you're going to put an artist's eye to it, you're going to put a critical eye to it. I've always been interested in the gray area that exists between the black and white, or the red and blue, and that's where complexity lies.

When people start thinking of you more as a persona, they are less inclined to allow you to move into different areas. Sometimes they're wrong. Sometimes they're just very stereotypical or restricted in their own thinking of what they'll allow you to do.

I don't know what your childhood was like, but we didn't have much money. We'd go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book.

What I would do is when I was younger I would draw in a sketch book something that happened in my life and then write a little something on the side about what happened or what the story.

When I go for a project, I wonder what underpinning a project will have that's going to give the audience some emotional access to it.

Ideas aren't real estate, they grow collectively and that knocks out the egotistical loneliness that generally infects art.

The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it's all in the story.

I'm not interested in a film about golf but I am interested in golf as a metaphor.

Let's get something straight - I don't see myself as beautiful.

Sometimes the failures can be exciting and fun. It's just a step on the road, it's not the end of something.

You're never going to be the same person you are right now.

What is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?

I believe in mythology. I guess I share Joseph Campbell's notion that a culture or society without mythology would die, and we're close to that.

I did not, like my children and people today, grow up with television as part of my life.

Journalism has changed tremendously because of the democratization of information. Anybody can put something up on the Internet. It's harder and harder to find what the truth is.

I am passionate. I am political about my country, about what it is, how strong it is, how strong it remains.

The way you really find out about the performer's seriousness about the cause is how long they stay with it when the spotlight gets turned off. You see a lot of celebrities switch gears. They go from the environment to animal rights to obesity or whatever. That I don't have a lot of respect for.

People are becoming more and more aware of how the dominance of development and business is altering their lives and, in particular, their own heritage.

We program the festival, after 20 years, exactly the way we did on the first day.

If you stay in Beverly Hills too long, you become a Mercedes.

Storytelling is important. Part of human continuity.

Sundance was started as a mechanism for the discovery of new voices and new talent.

It's hard to pay attention these days because of multiple affects of the information technology nowadays. You tend to develop a faster, speedier mind, but I don't think it's necessarily broader or smarter.

I guess the optimistic thing is that those people in Congress who are climate deniers, I think their time has run out.

I'm not a lawyer, but I do know this: we need to protect our ability to tell controversial stories.

I love making films more than anything, but it's tough.

Because, you know, you're in Utah. And because of its political conservatism, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

I can't think of anything outside of having the gift yourself and creating yourself. I can't think of the next better thing to do than being able to put it back. Creative expression, I think, is vital to the success of any society ... A society without art will die.

I'm always drawn to stories that people don't know about, particularly when they're inside of a story that everyone knows about.

I didn't want the attacks to affect me. I don't believe you should be led by fear.

I've always liked speed. I own a car that I shouldn't be talking about because I'm an environmentalist, but the 1955 Porsche Spyder 550 RS is the finest sports car ever made.

I'm not much interested in sport just as sport. I wouldn't be interested in making a golf film or baseball or fishing film.

I learned early that you'd better know what you're talking about. You'd better realize that certain issues are going to be so hot - no matter what reason, what logic you apply to it - you're going to be met with an opposition just because their viewpoint is different, and there's no way they're going to accept your reasoning. Furthermore, they're going to attack you because you will be portrayed as not being credible: "You're an actor. What do you know?"

Ambiguity is something that I really respond to. I like the complexity of it.

I had just arrived in New York from California. I was nineteen years old and excited beyond belief. I was an art student and an acting student and behaved as most young actors did - meaning that there was no such thing as a good actor, 'cause you yourself hadn't shown up yet.

I believe the American people care a lot about the environment.

Not taking a risk is a risk. That's how I see it.

I was blessed to look well and retain a youthful look but that was just genes. I was disappointed when critics started pointing out my wrinkles. I thought, you mean this is what it's gonna be about now? I'm not going to be permitted to be human?

I started as an actor in the theater playing a lot of character parts, and suddenly, I found myself in this place where it felt like I was getting locked into a kind of a stereotype, and it did bother me.

What we are living with is the result of human choices and it can be changed by making better, wiser choices.

Once the festival achieved a certain level of notoriety, then people began to come here with agendas that were not the same as ours. We can't do anything about that. We can't control that.

Television tells us only the things it wants to. It still feeds us heroes, it still offers villains. And even though we know better than to always trust it, we still watch.

I never had a problem with my face on screen. I thought it is what it is, and I was turned off by actors and actresses that tried to keep themselves young.

The country is so wounded, bleeding, and hurt right now. The country needs to be healed-it's not going to be healed from the top, politically. How are we going to heal? Art is the healing force.

When things become insurmountable, some people quit, some keep going
for no other reason than to continue. Because that's all there is to do.

Lastly get emotionally connected to your story so you can deliver it, you know, if you can't deliver the emotions to your script there's no point to your story. Story is the key.

All my life I've been dogged by guilt because I feel there is this difference between the way I look and the way I feel inside.

People have been so busy relating to how I look, it's a miracle I didn't become a self-conscious blob of protoplasm.

Whenever there's chaos, there's ambiguity, and where there's ambiguity, there's fear. And fear gets manipulated.

[Making Ordinary People] was a wonderful experience. Tremendous. I haven't seen it since. It belongs to the public now; it no longer really belongs to me.

It's all about greed and money and it's the driving force in Hollywood.

It felt to me like America was always wanting to resolve things too quickly, without thinking through what the costs and consequences would be and how that affects an individual living in that world. Then as I grew up and went about my life, I think I just got more and more interested in that gray area where things are not so easily quantified.

If you talk about an issue, what comes back is a description of what you're wearing. Reporters only want to know how tall you are and if your teeth are capped.

You work like hell to get yourself ahead in the business. You could go anywhere before, and suddenly you can't go anywhere. It's like being a cartoon character.

Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better.

I don't think about when it's going to stop and what you do before it stops. You just keep moving.

The tough thing about adulthood is it starts before you even know it starts.