Robert Benton Quotes

I'm a dyslexic person, so I avoid books.

I was born in North London in 1947. I didn't learn to read until I was almost 8-partly bad schooling, and partly I suspect slight dyslexic problems. My father, driven mad by this, taught me to read. At 9 I began writing.

I didn't learn how to read until I was at the end of fifth grade and 11 years old and held back.

I definitely have managed to overcome dyslexia now to become a fully functional human being but things were a lot more difficult when I was younger.

I had a lot of reading problems growing up.

Many people with dyslexia truly suffer, and their lives are worse off for having had that disability.

It took me nine years to get through the fourth grade. When I got into television commercials, I had to take a crash course in reading. I was 32 years old, and I couldn't read the cue cards.

I had an issue with dyslexia before they understood what dyslexia was. One of my teachers, Mrs. Anderson, taught me to look at it like a curveball. The ball breaks the same way every time. Once you get used to it, you can handle it pretty well.

I think for me I was in kindergarten, so I was very young and my teacher acknowledged that I was very dyslexic when it came to reading and writing and processing that information.

I worked with Mrs. Davis for four years, and then she realized, as the material started getting harder, that I had never learned to read. I was just listening as she'd play the song, and I'd play it back. When that happened, she got very upset and stopped being my teacher.

There was a time when I would sit with my books and immediately put them away. I'm not dyslexic, but I was like that child in 'Taare Zameen Par.' Coincidentally, the character's name was also Ishaan.

Being very dyslexic I couldn't even tie my own shoe laces until the age of 21 and I struggled at school.

I hated school . . . . One of the reasons was a learning disability, dyslexia, which no one understood at the time. I still can't spell . . .

I think, for some children, your skills don't lie in written words. A lot of school is based around written words and how good you are at spelling or reading. From a young age, if you're told you can't spell or read very well, you're made to feel a bit stupid.

I was trouble - and always in trouble. Aged eight I still couldn't read. In fact, I was dyslexic and short-sighted. Despite sitting at the front of the class, I couldn't read the blackboard. Only after a couple of terms did anyone think to have my eyes tested. Even when I could see, the letters and numbers made no sense at all.

I, myself, was always recognized . . . as the “slow one” in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was . . . an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.

Perhaps my early problems with dyslexia made me more intuitive: when someone sends me a written proposal, rather than dwelling on detailed facts and figures I find that my imagination grasps and expands on what I read.

I wasn't dyslexic, I was just very slow. I passed my time daydreaming.

I was very active but I was dyslexic and had a really hard time at school.

I didn't read at all until I was 12. I just couldn't. It was too frustrating.

I found many ways around my dyslexia, but I still have trouble transforming words into sounds. I have to memorize and rehearse before reading anything aloud to avoid embarrassing myself by mispronouncing words.

I had learning problems when I was in elementary school, and didn't really start to read well until high school. I never read any of the middle grade classics that were popular when I was young - 'Harriet the Spy', 'Charlotte's Web', 'The Witch of Blackbird Pond', 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'.

I think that maybe growing up and being dyslexic early on, the visual quality of cookbooks specifically was something very enticing to me.

I had this chronic hyperactivity and an inability to focus, so I was forever being moved to another class, with a much smaller group of children - some of them about 18. If I was asked to read a paragraph, this white wall would go up in my head. Still now, I read very slowly and can rarely work out a tip.

When I was younger, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, which meant, for me, sitting in front of a book was really hard - until I discovered Harry Potter, and this character, this 11-year-old boy, who suddenly gets off to school for the first time, captured my imagination, and suddenly reading was fun. Reading was inspiring, and I was motivated.