Jack Nicholson Quotes - Page 7

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.

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

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

I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.

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.

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.

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 like this ("A Few Good Men"), central to the idea of the movie.

My only emotion is gratitude, literally, for my life.

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

Comedy is more difficult. You can look at scenes when you're doing a drama like, “Maybe it works,” but in comedy, when you're doing it, either it works or it doesn't. You have to keep doing it until it does, and the requirement is more.

I'm such a perfectionist. I always feel overpraised or whatever. In the abstract, I know I'm a good person, a good professional. But it's nice to be noticed a little bit, ain't it?

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

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

It always bothered me when people came off stage and were told how great they were. They weren't, really, in my opinion. It was then I started thinking that, contrary to conventional wisdom, film was the artful medium for the actor, not the stage.

I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.

Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But remember, as my plastic surgeon always said: if you gotta go, go with a smile.

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

Before I moved into the mainstream of American movies, I wrote a script as an experiment. I wanted to get very far away from the clichés about the three-act play - structure, development.

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

[on the birth of his son after having had two daughters] I finally got it right.

I love the company of people. I always have and always will, it comes with my family. But earlier in life I might have got a little nervous if I was alone for a day or two in a row. I might think, "Where are they?" Now, I just go on doing naturally what I do.

Children give your life a resonance that it can't have without them.

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.

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