Peter Benchley
Peter Benchley
Peter Bradford Benchleywas an American author. He wrote the novel Jaws and co-wrote its subsequent film adaptation with Carl Gottlieb. Several more of his works were also adapted for cinema, including The Deep, The Island, Beast, and White Shark...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 May 1940
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
thinking fiction influence
I read very widely, both non-fiction and fiction, so I don't think there's a single writer who influences me.
fall tides reputation
Reputations rise and fall almost as regularly as the tides.
ocean writing sea
Since writing JAWS, I've been lucky enough to do close to forty television shows about wildlife in the oceans, and yes, I have been attacked by sea creatures once in a while.
ocean earth would-be
Without the oceans there would be no life on Earth.
sharks years white
Twenty-five years ago nobody knew much about white sharks.
children men two
The fish was an enemy. It had come upon the community and killed two men, a woman, and a child. The people of Amity would demand the death of the fish. They would need to see it dead before they could feel secure enough to resume their normal lives.
inspirational movie radio-news
You're gonna need a bigger boat.
dark moon careers
Oceanography is a terrific career because gradually we seem to be coming around to realize that we had better become as acquainted with the seventy percent of our planet that is covered by water as we are with the dark side of the moon.
ocean book thinking
The ocean is the only alien and potentially hostile environment on the planet into which we tend to venture without thinking about the animals that live there, how they behave, how they support themselves, and how they perceive us. I know of no one who would set off into the jungles of Malaysia armed only with a bathing suit, a tube of suntan cream, and a book, and yet that's precisely how we approach the oceans.
sharks target grudge
Sharks don't target human beings, and they certainly don't hold grudges.
beautiful dream animal
Sharks have everything a scientist dreams of. They're beautiful―God, how beautiful they are! They're like an impossibly perfect piece of machinery. They're as graceful as any bird. They're as mysterious as any animal on earth. No one knows for sure how long they live or what impulses―except for hunger―they respond to. There are more than two hundred and fifty species of shark, and everyone is different from every other one.
monsters fiction knows
I know now that the mythic monster I created was largely a fiction.
past looks seems
The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future.
running fear sea
There's nothing in the sea this fish would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That's their instinct. But this fish doesn't run from anything. He doesn't fear.