Robert Redford Quotes

I'm not interested in a film about golf but I am interested in golf as a metaphor.

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.

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

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

I didn't think about politics until I came to Europe.

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

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.

Essentially, my kids grew up with the emphasis on the environment because I became a political activist in about 1969 and it was not an easy time. Those were the days when the oil and gas companies pretty much controlled the show and anybody speaking about solar energy or carbon energy would get smashed down as being a radical or a tree-hugger or what have you. So I was out there feeling very often alone and my kids would get that.

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.

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.

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

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.

People are becoming more and more aware of how the dominance of development and business is altering their lives and, in particular, their own heritage.

I can't watch completed films - my wife makes fun of me.

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'.

He's meant to be that classic Homer, Ulysses, Hercules - a character who goes out or has some gift of some kind. He goes on a journey of discovery and part of that is falling into darkness - the temptations of life.

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

Filmgoers are starved for new ideas, voices and visions.

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

I was blessed to look well and retain a youthful look but that was just genes. I was disappointed when critics started pointing out my wrinkles. I thought, you mean this is what it's gonna be about now? I'm not going to be permitted to be human?

I remember my dad came from Ireland and Scotland, and so he carried with him the fear of poverty. So when I wanted to break loose, it kind of made him very nervous.

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

I believe in mythology. I guess I share Joseph Campbell's notion that a culture or society without mythology would die, and we're close to that.

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

I never had to worry about divestment because I never invested.

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.

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 think you just keep going. I've been that way, my whole life.

I think "quiet" sometime is a greater power than noise. It can harbor and reveal feelings that can't be expressed.

Right now I am working on something that's pretty important to me. It has to do with my own history in politics. I'd done All the President's Men, and the history of how that came about is a story unto itself. It began with The Candidate. No one knows about that connection. I was on a train, and I was promoting The Candidate going from Jacksonville, Florida, down to Miami to duplicate what candidates in 1972 did.

I don't think about when it's going to stop and what you do before it stops. You just keep moving.

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?

I'm always moving forward and trying new things.

What is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?

I'm not much interested in sport just as sport. I wouldn't be interested in making a golf film or baseball or fishing film.

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.

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

I love making films more than anything, but it's tough.

Times change; Hollywood is not the same as it was when I first entered the business. It felt to me like it was starting to narrow down and centralize itself around what would... make money.

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

I can't go into a bar anywhere without someone starting to play 'the Entertainer'.

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.

The way you really find out about the performer's seriousness about the cause is how long they stay with it when the spotlight gets turned off. You see a lot of celebrities switch gears. They go from the environment to animal rights to obesity or whatever. That I don't have a lot of respect for.

People are finally able to look around and say, 'I can see the drought, I can see the rising sea levels, I can see the crops dying. Okay, now I get it.' It is finally beginning to sink in that there has been a lot of damage.

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.

From my experience in my country, America over and over again takes itself right to the brink, it puts one foot over but it never goes over. It wakes up at the last minute and says woah, and then pulls back...

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

As an actor and as a person you come together with being in familiar territory although that has not been my whole life. That's been a part of it. I think a lot of people associate me with the west because of Sundance.