Robert Redford Quotes

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?

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

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.

God, I just love baseball.

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

We've poisoned the air, the water, and the land. In our passion to control nature, things have gone out of control. Progress from now on has to mean something different. We're running out of resources and we are running out of time.

Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together.

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

I'm interested in that thing that happens where there's a breaking point for some people and not for others. You go through such hardship, things that are almost impossibly difficult, and there's no sign that it's going to get any better, and that's the point when people quit. But some don't.

Never revisit the past, that's dangerous. You know, move on.

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.

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

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

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

He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.

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

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

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.

If you can do more, you should.

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

It's an honor putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Hollywood was not a place I dreamed of getting to. I never could take seriously the obsession people have about being a celebrity or getting to Hollywood - I was born next door.

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.

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.

Be careful of success; it has a dark side.

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

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.

Storytelling is important. Part of human continuity.

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 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 not a facelift person. I am what I am.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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?"

Whereas money is a means to an end for a filmmaker, to the corporate mind money is the end. Right now, I think independent film is very confused, because there's excess pressure in the marketplace for entertainment to pay off.

When I was about fifteen, I went to work at Yosemite National Park. It changed me forever. Nature had carved its own sculpture, and I was part of it, not the other way around.

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