Top 214 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Redford - Page 2

I haven't seen 'The Revenant,' but I'm sure it was great because it has a lot of talent involved.

I can't go into a bar anywhere without someone starting to play 'the Entertainer'.

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.

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.

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.

I spent two summers working at Camp Curry and at Yosemite Lodge as a waiter. It gave me a chance to really be there every day - to hike up to Vernal Falls or Nevada Falls. It just took me really deep into it. Yosemite claimed me.

I think independent filmmakers, documentary filmmakers - they are journalists.

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.

When I was a kid, all I knew was that I felt more comfortable sitting in one chair than in another. And now I realize it was because one chair was older. I still respond directly to the age of things.

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

I really do miss being able to go through life a little less noticed.

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.

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

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.

Storytelling is important. Part of human continuity.

Storytelling was a way to see the world bigger than the one you were looking at, and that had great appeal for me. I think, since that was part of my upbringing, it became part of me, and I wanted to pass it along to my kids and my grandkids.

I think that people should be paying a lot more attention to other issues, rather than who's the top 10 this or... who's the sexiest or the most beautiful.

I've always felt that almost every part I've played has been a character part. I mean, I look at it that way. I can't help how I look or how I seem to people.

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

For 'Jeremiah Johnson,' nobody wanted to make that film. I went to Sydney Pollack, and I said, 'Sydney, I live in the mountains, and I would like to make a film about a person that had to exist in the mountains and survive in the mountains.'

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

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.

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 have a lot of land. I bought it because I had a very strong feeling. I was in my early twenties, and I had grown up in Los Angeles and had seen that city slide off into the sea from the city I knew as a little kid. It lost its identity - suddenly there was cement everywhere and the green was gone and the air was bad - and I wanted out.

I'm an impatient person, so it's hard for me to sit around and do take after take after take.

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.

Money speaks in Utah.

I just wanted to paint and sketch and tell stories by drawing.

Part of me is drawn to the nature of sadness because I think life is sad, and sadness is not something that should be avoided or denied. It's a fact of life, like contradictions are.

I'm not a left-wing person. I'm just a person interested in the sustainability of my country.

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

I didn't know the technical language of filmmaking, so I said, 'OK, I'm going to do my own storyboard,' because I had to explain to the crew and the technical people what I wanted.

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.

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

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 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.

I began by doing a lot of character work on TV, just fun acting parts.

What I would like to do is a thriller. I've been wanting to do that for a long time, but one that was not at all dependent on special effects. Just purely psychological, but will scare the hell out of you. That's what I would like to do. I have not found it yet.

Going to Santa Fe is like going to Greece. It's not that special compared to other areas. The pinon pines are no different than pinon pines elsewhere. But there has been culture there longer than in most places, and you feel it.

The Right has such antiquated ideas - if they took charge, I think they'd want to close the parks, open the land up for development. It's an ongoing battle to keep the parks strong.

When you're making a movie, you don't think about the outcome. That's something I'm grateful for: whenever I go and do a new project, I never think about the outcome. It's always just about the work at hand. That's the fun part. The other part is always something I've had a struggle with, which is promoting the film. I know it's important.

Films don't always tell a story; some films can achieve effect just by being razzle-dazzle or rock n' roll. That's part of the fare that's out there. And that's okay. For me, I place more value on a story.

For me, the Sundance Institute is just an extension of something I believed in, which is creating a mechanism for new voices to have a place to develop and be heard.

I guess I don't like the fact that my life is becoming less and less my own - the prevailing attitude that you have an obligation to deliver yourself to the public. Actually, you're delivered to the public whether you like it or not. I guess if you don't like it, you should stop doing what provokes it. In my case, that's acting.

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

'Butch Cassidy' was the only film I ever enjoyed making.

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.

I think documentary filmmakers need as much protection as possible under journalist's privilege. How else is the public to know what is going on?

I've been able to carve out spaces for myself. At Sundance, I'm in the mountains - my property is private. I get on a horse and ride for three, four hours. Sometimes five. I get lost. But when I'm in, I'm in.

I wanted to get out of this country and experience different ways of seeing the world. So I went to Europe, but I went as an artist. I was increasing my skill set and exploring storytelling through painting.

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

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

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

I think "quiet" sometime is a greater power than noise. It can harbor and reveal feelings that can't be expressed.

We've lost our moral foundation, which allows us to go this far over. So I don't blame Trump. I just think he is what he is. We're the ones who let that happen. We should be looking at ourselves.

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

If you can do more, you should.

When I was young, I said to myself, "You've got to make the most of your life." It's all about taking risks. Push yourself to do as much exploration as possible. Find yourself. Because sometimes we think we've found ourselves, but it's only part of ourselves we've found. We haven't pushed ourselves far out there where we make mistakes and things don't work out, but at least we've discovered something. I felt that's what my life had to be.

I guess some mistakes you never stop paying for.

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