Sharks have everything a scientist dreams of. They're beautifulโGod, 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 impulsesโexcept for hungerโthey respond to. There are more than two hundred and fifty species of shark, and everyone is different from every other one.
Peter BenchleyThe ocean is the only alien and potentially hostile environment on the planet into which we tend to venture without thinking about the animals that live there, how they behave, how they support themselves, and how they perceive us. I know of no one who would set off into the jungles of Malaysia armed only with a bathing suit, a tube of suntan cream, and a book, and yet that's precisely how we approach the oceans.
Peter BenchleyNo, the shark in an updated JAWS could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors.
Peter Benchley