Jack Nicholson Quotes
Actor, Filmmaker
The minute that you're not learning I believe you're dead.
Acting is everybody's favorite second job.
I don't think many people have a very good understanding of leisure and the importance it plays in our lives.
With my sunglasses on, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and 60.
Just let the wardrobe do the acting.
There's only two people in your life you should lie to... the police and your girlfriend.
I'll tell you one thing: Don't ever give anybody your best advice, because they're not going to follow it.
I'm Irish. I think about death all the time.
Well, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I haven't been a rogue most of my life.
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 been too many places. I'm like the bad penny.
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.
If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women.
You only lie to two people in your life, your girlfriend and the police.
The average celebrity meets, in one year, ten times the amount of people that the average person meets in his entire life.
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.
My motto is: more good times.
Well, a girlfriend once told me never to fight with anybody you don't love.
I don't have any fear of intimacy, but rather thrive on it, which is rare in a public person.
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.
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.
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.
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 can't hit on women in public any more. I didn't decide this; it just doesn't feel right at my age.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In my last year of school, I was voted Class Optimist and Class Pessimist. Looking back, I realize I was only half right.
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.
I would never complain about my life, even though I really would like to have a mate.
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.
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.
I'm not a power person. I like everyone to be on an equal footing.
Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide.
I'm a New Wave baby, so I got very stimulated by foreign film.
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'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 am a person who is trained to look other people in the eye.
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!
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.
I don't want people to know what I'm actually like. It's not good for an actor.
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 hate giving advice, because people won't take it.
I learned a long time ago in Hollywood that the only person I should vote for is myself.
I have a lot of vanity.
When I was in high school, I earned the pimple award and every other gross-out award.
I don't have any plugs or tucks but people do what they want. I look at it as mutilation.
A lot of people can't remember things because they weren't actually there to begin with - they don't take it all in.
Almost everybody's happy to be a fool for love.
Age is the first limitation on roles that I've ever had to encounter, and I hit that awhile ago.
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.
The camera photographs what's there.
I wanted to be the best actor possible. I worked very hard at the craft of it.
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.
Financially, I've lost money and made money, but I know my way around financially.
There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.
I've spent more time playing golf than anything else the last 18 years. Just wanted to be an 80s-shooter. Got there, too.
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.
I used to think that one of the great signs of security was the ability to just walk away.
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.
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'm not hard to get along with.
I'm the last guy in the world to feel overlooked by the Academy.
Frankly, I got into the movies because I like the movies a lot.
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.
Once you've been really bad in a movie, there's a certain kind of fearlessness you develop.
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.
Most of the early part of an actor's career, you do the jobs you get.
The blues and jazz will live forever... So will the Delta and the Big Easy.
What's beautiful is all that counts, pal. That's all that counts.
I know I can act. There aren't too many other jobs I know how to do.
Once I got started acting I loved it.
I like to not care that much about criticism, but I do care about it.
I'm definitely still wild at heart.
I'm a good friend.