Sharks have everything a scientist dreams of. They're beautiful―God, how beautiful they are! They're like an impossibly perfect piece of machinery. They're as graceful as any bird. They're as mysterious as any animal on earth. No one knows for sure how long they live or what impulses―except for hunger―they respond to. There are more than two hundred and fifty species of shark, and everyone is different from every other one.

The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future.

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.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

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

I've never been hurt by a sea creature, except for jellyfish and sea urchins.

Reputations rise and fall almost as regularly as the tides.