Peter Benchley Quotes
Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.
Quotes to Explore
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I haven't found it to be particularly enjoyable... ninety percent of the time when I go on dates, I'm thinking, 'I could be reading my book instead.'
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You get on the radio by writing your own songs. But we had the dilemma of not being able to play anywhere because we weren't able to play anything that anyone wanted to hear. So we learned songs that we thought that we could do without puking.
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I did all of California from north to south. I did Florida from north to south. I went to the Midwest. I spent time discovering the culture because I thought I was going to stay in America for only two years. Then I decided to come to New York.
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I act because it's the one time I'm sure of my identity. There's no doubt. It's on paper.
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I have nothing maternal in me, and men want to be mothered a lot of the time.
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One cannot spend one's time in being modern when there are so many more important things to be.
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I felt like an outsider. The only time you get to really know guys is on the ice, and I couldn't be there.
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I got a job as soon as I could - 11 or 12. I started babysitting and then I got a part-time job at a pharmacy in England. I just remember loving the feeling of going out and buying my own clothes! I'd go bargain-hunting and get secondhand vintage stuff.
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I had two jobs coming out of school: I did a play, 'The Great White Hope.' I played the boxer Jack Johnson. And I was the lead in this indie film. Then I moved to Los Angeles because New York was cold and it was really too quiet for me at that time. I was out of school; I was hungry. The auditions were trickling in, and I was antsy and ready to go.
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When I started training to fight, it was more out of boredom than anything. I was looking for more things to do. I started with boxing, and my coaches told me I had a lot of potential and that I should consider making it a career. I was like, 'Whatever.' I was just 15 at the time, and I never imagined something like that.
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The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
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I don't spend any time at all thinking about my personal wealth. I suppose if I had nothing, I might think, 'I have nothing.'
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Often people would mistake me for white when I was younger, and I didn't correct them; there would be a period of time that they just thought I was.
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When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.
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I was born in 1950, so there were tons of Westerns on TV by the time I was 6, 7, 8 years old. In terms of television, 'Maverick' and 'Have Gun - Will Travel.' But filmically, classics like 'High Noon' and 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' - that's one of my favorite films.
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I haven't done a marathon for a long time. So we'll see. I will need good luck.
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We have domesticated God's transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus; but our ideas about Santa Claus change, mature and become more nuanced, whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.
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Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith.
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When I began writing in the mid-1960s, I thought it was not important for readers to know whether I was male or female. Also, I was a great admirer of E.B. White, so I may have thought that it would bring me luck to submit my first manuscript as 'E.L.' But if I were starting out today, I would use my first name.
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Which mindset is right? Mine, of course. People who disagree with me are by definition crazy. (Until I change my mind, when they can suddenly become upstanding citizens. I'm flexible, and not black-and-white.)
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Success for me its to raise happy, healthy human beings.
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Give the public everything you can give them, keep the place as clean as you can keep it, keep it friendly.
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Who will argue that 98.6 Farenheit is the right temperature for man? As for me, I decline to do it. It may be that we are all actually freezing hence the pervading stupidity of mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might be intelligent.
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Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.
