Robert Benton Quotes

Movies without meaningful dialogue play well all over the world. The Apostle is probably the best movie of the year, but it won't do squat in Korea.

I was dyslexic before anybody knew what dyslexia was. I was called 'slow'. It's an awful feeling to think of yourself as 'slow' - it's horrible.

Beauty doesn't have anything to do with prettiness. Beauty has to do with something else; it gets into an area where words can't go.

Style is the most ephemeral thing I know. It's not about how effective you are it's about how you are effective.

My next film is always shaped by the last one... by the things I feel I didn't get right, or the things I like and want to try to develop further, but it always comes out of the last picture.

Twilight is about getting older and relationships - not about a murder mystery. It's about love when you reach a certain age; nothing is in primary colors.

It's interesting that there are places that words can't get to.

Sometimes other people have better ideas.

I couldn't sit down and write a novel or a short story - even now - because of my dyslexia. But I learned narration through movies.

Style and taste do not have anything to do with the other. It's the difference between wit and humor.

People who go for humor are wonderful because they do great humor. People who go for wit and end up with humor are people who have made a mistake.

The thing I loved the most about being art director was picking the photographers and working with them.

Having one perfect thing was less important than having a range of ideas, realizing they were all taking you in a certain direction.

Style is a way of talking about yourself.

My education was an education by movies.

The greatest style is when you can't see the style though you walk away knowing it was there. It's like a perfume - there but not there.

Style lasts forever and taste doesn't.

Taste has nothing to do with style.

New York was big enough and wide enough that it allowed for reasonably eccentric people like me to thrive. It was a perfect place for me.

Every since high school I've been drawn to magazines.

Although I had a few jobs that I didn't like, or quit, or got fired from, I really loved New York from the moment I got here and I never stopped.

Everybody thought New York was this hard, cruel place, and I found it to be an extraordinarily wonderful place filled with the most interesting people.

Movie narration in the forties was radically different than the narrative involved in books.