Top 214 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Redford - Page 3

I was producing things I was acting in, but I had never directed and I felt it was time. I was looking for a piece of material that was about behavior and feelings. When I read Judith Guest's book, I thought, This is it.

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

I have faith in the pendulum swinging. Right now it's so far against the wall that it can't go any farther; it's gonna start to swing back. That's my optimism. One of the cures is gonna be getting the American people to fully wake up. All the American people, particularly young people, because they're gonna inherit this earth; they're gonna inherit what we're doing.

If we want energy security, then we have to reduce our appetite for fossil fuels. There's no other way. Other issues may crowd the headlines, but this is our fundamental challenge. Big challenges require bold action and leadership. To get the United States off fossil fuels in this uneasy national climate of terrorism and conflict in the Persian Gulf, we must treat the issue with the urgence and persistance it deserves. The measure of our success will be the condition on which we leave the world for the next generation.

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.

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

I'm gonna die but I haven't thought about retiring.

Success is a tricky mistress. It's nice to have but it's a tricky thing to embrace.

It seems everyone in Hollywood is getting pinched, lifted and pulled. I'm looking weird because I'm not.

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.

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

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.

Politics right now is in a very dark place, and I think the only place for me is to do what I do - make films, create art, watch it as it evolves. Right now it's like Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall, and a great fall is happening. The behavior seems to be really dumb.

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.

Utah is changing. There are good people in Utah. More people want to change the discriminatory laws than want to keep them. People should be able to marry whomever they love.

Other people have analysis. I have Utah.

That's another thing that's depressing: certain attitudes in Congress. They assume that you're dumb; they can take advantage of you being dumb. I find that offensive. It insults our intelligence. They're playing us for dumb and they're being dumb in doing it. But I believe that's gonna change. I think those people, the McConnells, are not helping us at all. They're taking us backward in time.

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

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?"

It's a creative enterprise, just like art, just like painting, music. Creating something can be done in different categories, so to do it in film is just another expression, which is great. Because it translates so well because so many people see the work, if you're lucky.

San Franciscans are very proud of their city, and they should be. It’s the most beautiful place in the world.

...if our humanity - our soul as a society - is overtaken by the materiel and cosmetic, there will be no hope of peace.

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

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.

The world around us is in a sea change, and I think the glory of art is that it cannot only survive change, it can lead it

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

When I grew up, shame was used as a tool for check and balance. If you stood a chance of hearing someone say, "Shame on you," or "You should be ashamed of yourself," you thought twice. It doesn't seem to be a factor today.

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?

I guess there are different ways to handle success. You can multiply it financially and use it to multiply your net worth. That's always been very appealing to me.

There's a lot of hyperventilation that takes off before the [Sundance Film] Festival, a lot of buzz. Every year we hear, this is going to be the new this, this is going to be the new that, and it never is. The buzz just doesn't mean anything. I'm glad it doesn't. Because I think the festival shows that what succeeds is content.

I would see my hometown, Los Angeles, change. Green space and orange groves gave way to cement, freeways flooded with traffic, and air pollution, all in the name of "progress." I felt like I was losing my home. It had a profound effect on me, and I realized just how important nature was to my spirit, my soul, my point of view.

I was raised in California during the Second World War and into the '50s and everything was fine, everything was great. The sun always shone, everybody looked healthy and wore ties and smoked in restaurants, and there were cars for everybody - except us, because I came from a lower class neighbourhood. But [in France] I realised there was a different point of view, so when I came back to America a year and a half later I was much more focused on my own country culturally and politically.

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

I'd been influenced by reading books on art and colonies that existed in Paris and places like that and so when I came to Europe I came to France and I had very little money, and I had to live low and stayed in a bohemian section of Paris with a lot of other students, who were from medical school, science school and art school. We all lived in a kind of communal way and I was challenged politically, because I didn't have a clue and they would ask me questions about the Algerian War, which was very big in France in the late '50s.

I think there was something that made us not pay attention to climate change. Something that was up there. There was a saying when we were trying to pay attention to the environment that people used this phrase NIMBY - not in my back yard. People were saying, ‘I don’t care, it is not in my back yard.’ But now it’s in everyone’s back yard.

I'm not good at compromise.

Sundance started with two acres back in 1963 that I bought from a sheepherder for $500. What has happened, I could see development starting to descend on the state of Utah. I thought I had better acquire more land to protect it. I thought that would probably be my legacy, to protect land.

If you could ever do a project that really has magic in it, and justifiable magic, you should do it.

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

I used to feel competitive about a career, but now the only things I'm really passionate about are my family, the environment and Indians.

What really matters is the work. And what matters to me is doing the work. I'm not looking at the back end: "What am I going to get out of this? What's going to be the reward?" I'm just looking at the work, the pleasure of being able to do the work. And that's what the fun is: To climb up the mountain is the fun, not standing at the top. There's nowhere to go. But climbing up, that struggle, that to me is where the fun is. That to me is the thrill. But once that's over, that's kind of it. I don't look too much beyond that.

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

I think Hollywood... well, there is no Hollywood anymore so let's just call it the mainstream since the business is no longer Hollywood producing its own films and then distributing, they just distribute.

I try to avoid giving advice. The only advice I will give is to pay attention. I don't mean to the screen in your hand. I'm talking about the natural world. I spent a lot of time educating my children about nature by putting them in nature. I said, "I want you to listen; I want you to look." There's so much technology coming into our lives that takes us away from the natural stuff, so I'm pushing the other way.

I've been very fortunate in that I've had wonderful relationships with people I've worked with.

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

A lot of what acting is is paying attention.

Between 18 and 19 years old [in the 1950s] I came to Paris. I studied art. And that experience really did change my life. I was living hand to mouth. I walked everywhere. I thought, this city is incredible but you really have to experience it by walking it.

As a director, I wouldn't like me as an actor. As an actor, I wouldn't like me as a director.

He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.

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 never had to worry about divestment because I never invested.

Criticism challenges current findings. The effort to defend one's position can lead to deeper insights or consideration of options previously not considered.

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

I don't remember spending any time with anybody on set. I don't spend a lot of time with people.

The way I deal with arthritis is to keep moving. As long as I can play hard tennis, as long as I can ski or ride a horse - all kinds of things can come your way. As long as you can, do it. People who retire die. My dad retired and died shortly after. Just keep moving.

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

I don't think you can ever return, really.

The entertainment person gets a certain credibility, and the politician gets a certain notoriety. I'm against it.

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.