Look, Chief, you can't go off half-cocked looking for vengeance against a fish. That shark isn't evil. It's not a murderer. It's just obeying its own instincts. Trying to get retribution against a fish is crazy.

If man doesn't learn to treat the oceans and the rain forest with respect, man will become extinct.

Without sharks, you take away the apex predator of the ocean, and you destroy the entire food chain

Look, Chief, you can't go off half-cocked looking for vengeance against a fish. That shark isn't evil. It's not a murderer. It's just obeying its own instincts. Trying to get retribution against a fish is crazy.

I read very widely, both non-fiction and fiction, so I don't think there's a single writer who influences me.

Since writing JAWS, I've been lucky enough to do close to forty television shows about wildlife in the oceans, and yes, I have been attacked by sea creatures once in a while.

There's nothing in the sea this fish would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That's their instinct. But this fish doesn't run from anything. He doesn't fear.