Robert Redford
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.Collection: Men
I didn't think about politics until I came to Europe.Collection: Thinking
The mainstream usually follows trends, it seldom sets them except for a few films.Collection: Trends
I'm not that interested in someone that one-dimensional, but I'm interested in playing somebody that's more complicated.Collection: Complicated
Storytelling was a way to see the world bigger than the one you were looking at, and that had great appeal for me. I think since that was part of my upbringing, it became part of me, and I wanted to pass it along to my kids and my grandkids.Collection: Kids
As an artist I just can't think of a better life than the one I've been blessed with. It's just a great ride.Collection: Blessed
I used to feel competitive about a career, but now the only things I'm really passionate about are my family, the environment and Indians.Collection: Careers
It's all about greed and money and it's the driving force in Hollywood.Collection: Greed
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.Collection: Issues
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?"Collection: Talking
I've been very fortunate in that I've had wonderful relationships with people I've worked with.Collection: People
He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.Collection: Sarcastic
San Franciscans are very proud of their city, and they should be. It’s the most beautiful place in the world.Collection: Beautiful
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.Collection: Balance
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.Collection: Book
People have been so busy relating to how I look, it's a miracle I didn't become a self-conscious blob of protoplasm.Collection: Self
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.Collection: Home
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.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Utah
I didn’t want the attacks to affect me. I don’t believe you should be led by fear.Collection: Believe
I have a very low regard for cynics. I think it's the beginning of dying.Collection: Thinking
A lot of what acting is is paying attention.Collection: Acting
I guess there are different ways to handle success. You can multiply it financially and use it to multiply your net worth. That's always been very appealing to me.Collection: Different
I try to avoid giving advice. The only advice I will give is to pay attention. I don't mean to the screen in your hand. I'm talking about the natural world. I spent a lot of time educating my children about nature by putting them in nature. I said, "I want you to listen; I want you to look." There's so much technology coming into our lives that takes us away from the natural stuff, so I'm pushing the other way.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Fun
All my life I've been dogged by guilt because I feel there is this difference between the way I look and the way I feel inside.Collection: Differences
Whenever there's chaos, there's ambiguity, and where there's ambiguity, there's fear. And fear gets manipulated.Collection: Chaos
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.Collection: Wall
The world around us is in a sea change, and I think the glory of art is that it cannot only survive change, it can lead itCollection: Art
As a director, I wouldn't like me as an actor. As an actor, I wouldn't like me as a director.Collection: Directors
...if our humanity - our soul as a society - is overtaken by the materiel and cosmetic, there will be no hope of peace.Collection: Peace
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.Collection: Art
I'm gonna die but I haven't thought about retiring.Collection: Retiring
If you could ever do a project that really has magic in it, and justifiable magic, you should do it.Collection: Magic
There's a lot of money to be made by strip-mining and drilling the dirtiest oil on the planet. But why should the rest of us pay the price?Collection: Pay The Price
The tough thing about adulthood is it starts before you even know it starts.Collection: Aging
I look at going to Hollywood as going behind enemy lines. You parachute in, set up the explosion, then fly out before it goes off.Collection: Enemy
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.Collection: Sea
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...Collection: Country
[Making Ordinary People] was a wonderful experience. Tremendous. I haven't seen it since. It belongs to the public now; it no longer really belongs to me.Collection: People
I can't watch completed films - my wife makes fun of me.Collection: Fun
I guess the optimistic thing is that those people in Congress who are climate deniers, I think their time has run out.Collection: Running
Let's get something straight - I don't see myself as beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
In 1973, I was shown a graphic of how dependent the United States was on nonrenewable resources like oil and coal and that little was being done to change that. It seemed irrefutable that we needed a change in direction or we'd be paying a huge price down the road. That's when I made a commitment to become a political activist.Collection: Commitment
I've always wanted to try new things because it's exciting and it keeps you active and alive.Collection: Trying