Top 120 Robert Redford Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together.”

— Robert Redford

2. “I have no regrets, because I’ve done everything I could to the best of my ability.”

— Robert Redford

3. “When did Noah build the boat? – Before the rain.”

— Robert Redford

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

— Robert Redford

5. “Be careful of success; it has a dark side.”

— Robert Redford

6. “The way I deal with arthritis is to keep moving. As long as I can play hard tennis, as long as I can ski or ride a horse – all kinds of things can come your way. As long as you can, do it. People who retire die. My dad retired and died shortly after. Just keep moving.”

— Robert Redford

7. “Never revisit the past, that’s dangerous. You know, move on.”

— Robert Redford

8. “Well there’s these things called books... They are like TV for smart people.”

— Robert Redford

9. “I guess some mistakes you never stop paying for.”

— Robert Redford

10. “Not taking a risk is a risk. That’s how I see it.”

— Robert Redford

11. “The measure of our success will be the condition on which we leave the world for the next generation.”

— Robert Redford

12. “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?”

— Robert Redford

13. “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.”

— Robert Redford

14. “I’m not a facelift person. I am what I am.”

— Robert Redford

15. “Ambiguity is something that I really respond to. I like the complexity of it.”

— Robert Redford

16. “The art of making a film and its content are far more interesting to me than the result or impact.”

— Robert Redford

17. “Generally speaking, I went through that. I came to a place where I realised what true value was. It wasn’t money. Money is a means to achieving an end, but it’s not the end.”

— Robert Redford

18. “The tough thing about adulthood is it starts before you even know it starts.”

— Robert Redford

19. “God, I just love baseball.”

— Robert Redford

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

— Robert Redford

21. “I have the freedom to take chances, to say no. I have the freedom to be who I really want to be, rather than have to conform to this or that just to stay alive.”

— Robert Redford

22. “Filmgoers are starved for new ideas, voices and visions.”

— Robert Redford

23. “If you can do more, you should.”

— Robert Redford

24. “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.”

— Robert Redford

25. “He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”

— Robert Redford

26. “I’m interested in that thing that happens where there’s a breaking point for some people and not for others. You go through such hardship, things that are almost impossibly difficult, and there’s no sign that it’s going to get any better, and that’s the point when people quit. But some don’t.”

— Robert Redford

27. “Sport is a wonderful metaphor for life. Of all the sports that I played – skiing, baseball, fishing – there is no greater example than golf, because you’re playing against yourself and nature.”

— Robert Redford

28. “Storytellers broaden our minds: engage, provoke, inspire, and ultimately, connect us.”

— Robert Redford

29. “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 it.”

— Robert Redford

30. “Other people have analysis. I have Utah.”

— Robert Redford

31. “Water is the sleeping giant issue of the 21st century and we all need to wake up about it.”

— Robert Redford

32. “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.”

— Robert Redford

33. “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.”

— Robert Redford

34. “I don’t see myself as beautiful. I was a kid who was freckle-faced, and they used to call me ‘hay head.’”

— Robert Redford

35. “What I would do is when I was younger I would draw in a sketch book something that happened in my life and then write a little something on the side about what happened or what the story.”

— Robert Redford

36. “When I was a kid I was not a good student. I went to the University of Colarado, my grades were poor. I was asked to leave after a year. What I really wanted to do was to be an artist.”

— Robert Redford

37. “Storytelling is important. Part of human continuity.”

— Robert Redford

38. “What we are living with is the result of human choices and it can be changed by making better, wiser choices.”

— Robert Redford

39. “Lastly get emotionally connected to your story so you can deliver it, you know, if you can’t deliver the emotions to your script there’s no point to your story. Story is the key.”

— Robert Redford

40. “As a director, I wouldn’t like me as an actor. As an actor, I wouldn’t like me as a director.”

— Robert Redford

41. “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.”

— Robert Redford

42. “I’m gonna die but I haven’t thought about retiring.”

— Robert Redford

43. “If you stay in Beverly Hills too long, you become a Mercedes.”

— Robert Redford

44. “Whenever there’s chaos, there’s ambiguity, and where there’s ambiguity, there’s fear. And fear gets manipulated.”

— Robert Redford

45. “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.”

— Robert Redford

46. “Part of me is drawn to the nature of sadness because I think life is sad, and sadness is not something that should be avoided or denied. It’s a fact of life, like contradictions are.”

— Robert Redford

47. “I was never a good student. I had to be dragged into kindergarten. It was hard to sit and listen to somebody talk. I wanted to be out, educated by experience and adventure, and I didn’t know how to express that.”

— Robert Redford

48. “We’ve poisoned the air, the water, and the land. In our passion to control nature, things have gone out of control. Progress from now on has to mean something different. We’re running out of resources and we are running out of time.”

— Robert Redford

49. “Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better.”

— Robert Redford

50. “Because, you know, you’re in Utah. And because of its political conservatism, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

— Robert Redford