Robert Benton

“The most important thing in a movie is the story. Without a good story, you have nothing.”

“A movie is not a book. If it were a book, it would be a book.”

“I've always found that the more specific you are, the more universal you are.”

“Directing is just a series of choices. The right choices make a good movie, the wrong choices make a bad one.”

“Screenwriting is the most difficult form of writing, because it's a blueprint. It's not a finished product.”

“What I learned from him [Truffaut] is that you can have a tough film, a film about subjects that are not easy, and it can be a popular film.”

“I don't think you can teach someone to write, but you can teach them what's wrong with what they've written.”

“You have to be surprised by your own work. You have to be thrilled by it. You have to be terrified by it.”

“I think that all of us are 5-year-olds and we don't change. We just get older.”

“I think the best actors are the most generous, the most giving.”