Jack Nicholson Quotes

That's what I like about the movie business: you're always in contact with wonderful and interesting people.

Liberalism is the right to question without being called a heretic. That's what America did for the world.

There are major influences on us that people are not aware of. There are big lies that nobody's willing to discuss.

In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.

I'm in the movie business; it's meant to be very cutthroat. But you won't find anybody that ever says I cheated them or manipulated them.

I come from the Lynchs of Sligo. You know, I went there, but I looked in the phone book and there are nine million Lynches in Sligo.

I just like art. I get pure pleasure from it. I have a lot of wonderful paintings, and every time I look at them I see something different.

Charlize Theron and Cate Blanchett are very good actresses.

I did not want to be coming off the stage at the mercy of what somebody else told me I did.

Well, a younger woman is a type, but not necessarily a type for me. And what is a younger woman? I mean, I'm pretty old. Almost everyone is younger.

As a means of supporting experiential element in film, once I begin to work on a particular movie I consider myself to be the tool of the director.

If you're going to write, write one poem all your life, let nobody read it, and then burn it. This is very young thinking, I confess, but it is the seminal part of my life.

As an actor, I want to give in to the collaboration with the director because I don't want my work to be all the same. The more this can be done with comfort, the more variety my work has had.

I thought of myself as part of the general filmmaking effort. And as my scope broadened, I began to think about directing. I wanted to be the guy who got to say whether the dress is red or blue.

In the real world there's an after-effect of disappointment if you lose an argument. But if, to begin with, you're set up not to have this particular autonomy, then you're not disappointed.

I have never felt brutalized as an actor. Many actors do, some times, but I've never had that experience. If I'm not happy with the balance, I just won't work with that person again.

I would never say, "I'm retired." I believe if I decided to just not work, in six months everybody would just forget whether you were working or not.

I feel very lucky because I don't think there's any part I can't play. There are parts that scare me more than others.

When you use a dialect, you worry that the people you're imitating will think you're making fun of them.

There was a period when I just wanted to make what I wanted to make and I didn't care what lie I had to tell.

OK, the director makes the movie. But some movies can't get made without someone like me in them.

For an actor, style comes last. You first have to implement the whole thing, but your style comes from the subconscious, which is the best part an actor brings to his work.

He [Castro] is a genius. We spoke about everything.

The most difficult thing about being well known? Getting out of a hotel room at 4am.

How would I like to be seen? Very endearing, charming, intelligent, handsome.

I don't remember if I've been asked seriously to direct a picture. I understand that. I'm very good business for people as an actor and perhaps they'd rather I didn't.

Most of the early part of an actor's career, you do the jobs you get.

Kids are life's only guaranteed, bona fide upside surprise.

Everybody said I was good, but being known and not having a big film success is almost tougher than being completely new. It just kind of turned my life around and was definitely a highlight.

I'm not hard to get along with.

I like to not care that much about criticism, but I do care about it.

I suppose I can do more for a script as an actor than as a writer - in the film sense.

One of my school friends' parents owned a minigolf course, and a bunch of us kids would play there all day in the summer. Two-under deuces was a good score.

I'm not a power person. I like everyone to be on an equal footing.

I've always had lots of friends who share my perspective - I guess you could say that I'm a guy who aggressively pursues his happiness.

I'm an actor who they said was wrinkled and balding and everything else when I was in my early 30's. Most of the people who wrote that who thought they were younger than me are now bald and wrinkled.

I love writing, but I stopped because I felt I was more effective approaching filmmaking from a different vantage point.

I'm a New Wave baby, so I got very stimulated by foreign film.

You have to do every movie one at a time. Trilogy is contrary to this ideology. My nightmare is to wake up and find myself the host of a TV series.

There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.

Because of the way the business is structured, I have sometimes turned down scripts that I might otherwise have accepted had I known who was directing them.

Million bucks won't see you through a major health crisis.

What's beautiful is all that counts, pal. That's ALL that counts.

I look for a director with a script he likes a lot, but I'm probably after the directors more than anything.

I don't believe in God now. I can still work up an envy for someone who has a faith. I can see how that could be a deeply soothing experience.

Financially, I've lost money and made money, but I know my way around financially.

I take responsibility for my successes as well as my failures. But when I look at my professional mistakes, I'm always left with the feeling that maybe I should have done more.

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

With my sunglasses on, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and 60.-Jack Nicholson