We are already perilously close to killing off the top of the oceanic food chain - with catastrophic consequences that we can't begin to imagine. Let us not, in the heat of anger, reduce the already devastated population of great white sharks by one more member.

- Peter Benchley

We provoke a shark every time we enter the water where sharks happen to be, for we forget: The ocean is not our territory - it's theirs.

- Peter Benchley

If we choose to walk into a forest where a tiger lives, we are taking a chance. If we swim in a river where crocodiles live, we are taking a chance. If we visit the desert or climb a mountain or enter a swamp where snakes have managed to survive, we are taking a chance.

- Peter Benchley

Without sharks, you take away the apex predator of the ocean, and you destroy the entire food chain.

- Peter Benchley

In a deeply tribal sense, we love our monsters, and I think that is the key to it right there. It is monsters; it is learning about them: it is both thrill and safety. You can think of them without being desperately afraid because they are not going to come into your living room and eat you. That is 'Jaws.'

- Peter Benchley

Without the oceans there would be no life on Earth.

- Peter Benchley

It is not that I don't have a fear of sharks, it is that I have a respect for them, so that I know any more than if I were to go into the jungle, I would have a fear of tigers, that I would try to lower the odds.

- Peter Benchley

We do not just fear our predators, we are transfixed by them. We are prone to weave stories and fables and chat endlessly about them.

- Peter Benchley

If man doesn't learn to treat the oceans and the rain forest with respect, man will become extinct.

- Peter Benchley

We are already perilously close to killing off the top of the oceanic food chain - with catastrophic consequences that we can't begin to imagine. Let us not, in the heat of anger, reduce the already devastated population of great white sharks by one more member.

- Peter Benchley