Jack Nicholson Quotations

There's only two people in your life you should lie to... the police and your girlfriend.

If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women.

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama; there's no device, It's just about a human being.

There were points in my life where I felt oddly irresistible to women. I'm not in that state now and that makes me sad.

Almost everybody's happy to be a fool for love.

When I am cast in a movie where I feel that the woman's part is more interesting, I usually start thinking about Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire. They seem to be the most clear actors when working with women.

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.

In my last year of school, I was voted Class Optimist and Class Pessimist. Looking back, I realize I was only half right.

When I come up against a director who has a concept that I don't agree with, or maybe I just haven't thought of it or whatever, I'd be more prone to go with them than my own because I want to be out of control as an actor, I want them to have the control, otherwise it's going to become predictably my work, and that's not fun.

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.

Well, a girlfriend once told me never to fight with anybody you don't love.

You only lie to two people in your life, your girlfriend and the police.

I worry from the moment I take a job. I worry about how I'm going to do it, if I can do it... Then I walk on set and the director says, 'Roll', and all of a sudden, all of it disappears and it's all happening, and I relax, and I'm doing what I do, and I'm not even thinking about it.

I don't have any fear of intimacy, but rather thrive on it, which is rare in a public person.

In this industry, there are only two ways up the ladder. Rung by rung or claw your way to the top. It's sure been tough on my nails.

The minute that you're not learning I believe you're dead.

I always knew there wasn't going to be anybody to help me and emotionally support me, that whatever I did I'd have to do on my own.

Beer, it's the best damn drink in the world.

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

Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide.

I've never been able to say I've been influenced by a list of artists I like because I like thousands and thousands and I've been influenced in some way by all of them.

Played tennis for years. But you can't improve at tennis after you're 50. You get to be in your 40s, and suddenly you're a doubles player.

The blues and jazz will live forever... So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

I don't think many people have a very good understanding of leisure and the importance it plays in our lives.

I'll tell you one thing: Don't ever give anybody your best advice, because they're not going to follow it.

We are going as fast as we can as soon as we can. We're in a race against time, until we run out of money.

It's not like I'm starved for company - I have a few very good lady friends - but there's only a certain amount of times a woman wants to see you and never go out for dinner.

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

Because you know, down deep in my heart, when all is said and done, I still live under the illusion that basically people think of me as an up-and-coming young actor.

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

Well, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I haven't been a rogue most of my life.

I'm content with the fact that I made a decent effort. That's what I've always worried about: that I wouldn't try hard enough.

I used to think that one of the great signs of security was the ability to just walk away.

A lot of people can't remember things because they weren't actually there to begin with - they don't take it all in.

Age is the first limitation on roles that I've ever had to encounter, and I hit that awhile ago.

A star on a movie set is like a time bomb. That bomb has got to be defused so people can approach it without fear.

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

I don't want people to know what I'm actually like. It's not good for an actor.

Once I got started acting I loved it.

I hate giving advice, because people won't take it.

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

The average celebrity meets, in one year, ten times the amount of people that the average person meets in his entire life.

When I was in high school, I earned the pimple award and every other gross-out award.

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

I can't hit on women in public any more. I didn't decide this; it just doesn't feel right at my age.

I don't have any plugs or tucks but people do what they want. I look at it as mutilation.

I wanted to be the best actor possible. I worked very hard at the craft of it.

If you get an impulse in a scene, no matter how wrong it seems, follow the impulse. It might be something and if it ain't - take two!

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

If I go into a restaurant there's a very good chance that I'm going to spend my time being the mayor. If I want to have a good time, I'm happier having dinner here.

I never had a policy about marriage. I got married very young in life and I always think in all relationships, I've always thought that it's counterproductive to have a theory on that.

I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.

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.

My whole career strategy has been to build a base so that I could take the roles I want to play. I'd hate to think that a shorter part might not be available because I was worried about my billing.

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 Irish. I think about death all the time.

I would never complain about my life, even though I really would like to have a mate.

It's a slight stretch of the imagination but most people are alike in most ways so I've never had any trouble identifying with the character that I'm playing.

There's a period just before you start a movie when you start thinking, I don't know what in the world I'm going to do. It's free-floating anxiety. In my case, though, this is over by lunch the first day of shooting.

I learned a long time ago in Hollywood that the only person I should vote for is myself.

I know I can act. There aren't too many other jobs I know how to do

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

I've been too many places. I'm like the bad penny.

Once you've been really bad in a movie, there's a certain kind of fearlessness you develop.

Frankly, I got into the movies because I like the movies a lot.

I am a person who is trained to look other people in the eye.

I'm the last guy in the world to feel overlooked by the Academy.

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've spent more time playing golf than anything else the last 18 years. Just wanted to be an 80s-shooter. Got there, too.

My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.

It was anticipated there would be times when the cash won't be there and we'll have to issue bonds. That's how it was always supposed to work.

With comedy, you have to do it right. In a drama, there's a lot of different ways to succeed in a moment. But comedy comes from reality. You can't try to be funny.

There are short parts that I as an actor am very right for. Or I just like the part. Or you need someone like me for the movie. By that I don't mean at the box office, I mean in the execution of the material.

There has long been a bemoaning of the lack of opportunity to make films that are anything but explosions or the ladling on the pea soup or whatever you want to call it. You can hardly make a movie where somebody isn't a murderer or a rapist or, if it's a "Fried Green Tomatoes" that isn't some wistful thing on this, that or the other thing.

It's difficult for people sometimes to recognise when they're happy. People sometimes seem to me to be afraid to be happy.

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

It's the post-literate generation that is most disturbing to a movie-maker. The explosions and the knifings. People like to go to what's hot and you can't get past a certain gross unless you involve children who go more than once.

It [TV] is the cancer of film. It's why people can't be educated to film. In the late '60s, we expected to see a movie or two every week and be stimulated, excited and inspired. And we did. Every week after week. Antonioni, Goddard, Truffaut - this endless list of people. And then comes television and home video. I know how to work exactly for the big screen, but it doesn't matter what I think about the art of movie-making versus TV.

Freedom in every sense but primarily political sense, a rise in repression that stems from a repression of sexuality. It's AIDS, it's herpes, it's this, it's that. Ask any saloon owner what's happened to social life in America and they'll tell you it's a different world and these people are strongly misinformed by the media, peer pressure.

Having kids is the most innately positive thing that anyone can do.

I'm fairly well off. I can't poor-mouth that away from people's sensibilities about me, which is something I worry about as an actor. But it would be real stupid of me to do something for the money.

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.

The first role I ever played I had the lead and it's pretty much stayed that way, though people take great relish in calling me a character actor, which I am. There are a lot of short parts I could play, but I only do them when they are central to the idea of the movie.

Always try in interviews to avoid the cliches about the problems of public life.

I love working with women directors. They don't mind making you cute.

I assume most of the characters I play are exactly like me.

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.

I wasn't a babe in the woods. I'd watched a lot of stars, from James Dean to Brando, and I'd seen everybody alive work at MGM. I had a certain old-timer's quality, even though I was young and new, and drew on what I believed before I made it.

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.

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'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 don't believe that relationships are fixed things. People are necessarily complex and confused beings. We don't always do the right thing, say the right, and behave the same way or the way we always want to behave.

I think human beings have a basic instinct to be free and explore their world in their own way. I've always been driven to look at life as something which we should try to plunge into rather than sit back. You have to be able to have fun and keep creating a sense of excitement to how you approach the world.

The way I reacted to 9/11 was I decided I didn't want to do any movies that are sad or critical. I decided I didn't want to make my living depressing people or making them go home sick, so I just decided I wanted to do comedy for a while and study it for a while. It doesn't mean everybody should do that, but that was my reaction.

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.

Comedy is much harder, it's a lot more exacting. You can't just be real and you can't just use the same kind of techniques you use to fill up a regular scene.

I'm against cronyism, and I had to learn that early on. Like, I don't have an entourage, because I saw the negative effects of those things.

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

If you want your freedom, you have to be willing to work hard to exercise it.

I've always fought against being controlled and manipulated and stomped upon by circumstances.