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I Began To Think That The Finest Modern Writer Was The Screen Actor. This Was In The Spirit Of The Fifties Where A Very Antiliterary Literature Was Emerging - Kenneth Patchen And Others. I Kind Of Believed What Nietzsche Said, That Nothing Not Written In Your Blood Is Worth Reading; It's Just More Pollution Of The Airwaves.

-Jack Nicholson

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I Began To Think

Jack Nicholson

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I Began To Think That The Finest Modern Writer Was The Screen Actor. This Was In The Spirit Of The Fifties Where A Very Antiliterary Literature Was Emerging - Kenneth Patchen And Others. I Kind Of Believed What Nietzsche Said, That Nothing Not Written In Your Blood Is Worth Reading; It's Just More Pollution Of The Airwaves.

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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.

The Most Difficult Thing About Being Well Known? Getting Out Of A Hotel Room At 4am.

We Learn How To Kiss, Or To Drink, Talk To Our Buddies-all The Things That You Can't Really Teach In Social Studies Or History-we All Learn Them At The Movies.

I Don’t Want To Be A Product Of My Environment. I Want My Environment To Be A Product Of Me.

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.

Congratulations

You Know, I Think I Understand What You're Like Now. You're Very Beautiful And You Think Men Are Only Interested In You Because You're Beautiful. But You Want Them To Be Interested In You Because You're You. The Problem Is, Aside From All That Beauty, You're Not Very Interesting. You're Rude, You're Hostile, You're Sullen, You're Withdrawn... Oh, I Know- You Want Someone To Look Past All That At The Real Person Underneath. But The Only Reason Anyone Would Bother To Look Past All That Is Because You're Beautful. Ironic, Isn't It? In An Odd Way You're Your Own Problem.

When I Was In High School, I Earned The Pimple Award And Every Other Gross-out Award.

I Am A Person Who Is Trained To Look Other People In The Eye.

I Assume Most Of The Characters I Play Are Exactly Like Me.

My Only Emotion Is Gratitude, Literally, For My Life.

You Make Me Want To Be A Better Man.

You Can Call Me Joker. And As You Can See, I'm A Lot Happier.

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 Do Pray. I Pray To Something...up There. I Have A God Sense. It's Not Religious So Much As Superstitious. It's Part Of Being Human, I Guess.

If It Is Difficult To Know Yourself As An Individual, It Seems To Be More Complex As A Couple. So If You Say, "oh I Like A Person Who Is Like This And That," You Might Take Away The Possibility Of Seeing The Only One That Might Be Right For You.

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'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.

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.

Charlize Theron And Cate Blanchett Are Very Good Actresses.

Life Doesn't Have To Be About Finding Osama Bin Laden Or Becoming The President Of The United States. Life Is About The Little Things, Which Is One Of The Things You Learn When You Get Older.

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.

Lots Of Friends

Frankly, I Got Into The Movies Because I Like The Movies A Lot.

I Know I Can Act. There Aren't Too Many Other Jobs I Know How To Do. Financially, I've Lost Money And Made Money, But I Know My Way Around Financially. I've Been Too Many Places. I'm Like The Bad Penny.

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 Are Major Influences On Us That People Are Not Aware Of. There Are Big Lies That Nobody's Willing To Discuss.

Everyone Pretty Much Acknowledges That He's The Man, And I Still Feel That Underrates Him.

I Resist All Established Beliefs. My Religion Basically Is To Be Immediate, To Live In The Now. It's An Old Cliche, I Know, But It's Mine. I Envy People Of Faith. I'm Incapable Of Believing In Anything Supernatural. So Far, At Least. Not That I Wouldn't Like To. I Mean, I Want To Believe. I Do Pray. I Pray To Something ... Up There. I Have A God Sense. It's Not Religious So Much As Superstitious. It's Part Of Being Human, I Guess ... Do Unto Others: How Much Deeper Into Religion Do We Really Need To Go?

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 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.

Never Rub Another Man's Rhubarb.

I Know I Can Act. There Aren't Too Many Other Jobs I Know How To Do

I Mean, It's Real Hard To Be Free When You Are Bought And Sold In The Marketplace. Of Course, Don't Ever Tell Anybody That They're Not Free, 'cause Then They're Gonna Get Real Busy Killin' And Maimin' To Prove To You That They Are. Oh Yeah, They're Gonna Talk To You And Talk To You And Talk To You About Individual Freedom. But They See A Free Individual, It's Gonna Scare 'em.

I Would Never Want To Vilify Somebody Who Considered Abortion Murder. I Was An Illegitimate Child Myself. I May Not Have Existed Today.

If Men Are Honest, Everything They Do And Everywhere They Go Is For A Chance To See Women.

I Think It's Good If A Man Gives A Woman Some Time To Herself Because I Think We All Need That And We Can All Benefit From That. It Doesn't Imply A Rejection Of The Other Person, Just A Sense That Because We Do Have Our Separate Identities, Sometimes You Have To Be Less Involved In Another Person's Life Or Need To Have That Other Person Be Less Involved In Your Life.

Have You Ever Danced With The Devil In The Pale Moonlight?

Always Try In Interviews To Avoid The Cliches About The Problems Of Public Life.

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.

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've Always Had An Urge To Feed My Need To Have Fun And Feel Free. I Don't See Any Interesting Alternatives.

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.

When You Use A Dialect, You Worry That The People You're Imitating Will Think You're Making Fun Of Them.

My Point Of View, While Extremely Cogent, Is Unpopular. . . . That The Repressive Nature Of The Legalities Vis-a-vis Drugs Are Destroying The Legal System And Corrupting The Police System.

Even In The Most Sophisticated Person, It Is The Primitive Eye That Watches The Film.

I Used To Be Very Quick, I Would Be Able To Leave The Room And Be Back Before You Noticed. When You Can't Do That Anymore You Need To Change The Style Of How You Do Things. But I'm Very Interested In Life And You Don't Want To Lose That.

If You Think You’re Attractive, You’re Always Attractive.

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 Want A Big 25-foot Pink Statue That Holds My Grave. Or I Also Might Like The Way The Indians Did It. They Hang You Up On The Top Of A Tree And The Birds Eat You. No, Really I Would Probably Choose Cremating.

I Wanted To Be The Best Actor Possible. I Worked Very Hard At The Craft Of It.

Men Dominate Because Of Physicality, And Thus They Have Mercy Where Women Do Not.

I Respect The Social Graces Enormously. How To Pass The Food. Don't Yell From One Room To Another. Don't Go Through A Closed Door Without A Knock. Open The Doors For The Ladies. All These Millions Of Simple Household Behaviors Make For A Better Life. We Can't Live In Constant Rebellion Against Our Parents - It's Just Silly. I'm Very Well Mannered. It's Not An Abstract Thing. It's A Shared Language Of Expectations.

Son, We Live In A World That Has Walls And Those Walls Have To Be Guarded By Men With Guns. Who's Gonna Do It? You!?

I Love Working With Women Directors. They Don't Mind Making You Cute.

Everybody's Old Enough For A Beer, Ain't That Right, Mule?

I Like To Not Care That Much About Criticism, But I Do Care About It.

I Began To Think That The Finest Modern Writer Was The Screen Actor. This Was In The Spirit Of The Fifties Where A Very Antiliterary Literature Was Emerging - Kenneth Patchen And Others. I Kind Of Believed What Nietzsche Said, That Nothing Not Written In Your Blood Is Worth Reading; It's Just More Pollution Of The Airwaves.

Once You've Started A Film You Don't Become A Wet Noodle. You Must Have That Conflictual Interface Because You Don't Know, And They Don't Know. It's Through Conflict That You Come Out With Something That Might Be Different, Better Than Either Of You Thought To Begin With.

I Have Given A Name To My Pain, And It Is Batman.

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 Only Take Viagra When I'm With More Than One Woman.

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.

I'm Certainly Not As Tough As People Think. I'm Not A Fighter And So Forth. I'd Just As Soon Go Home.

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.

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 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.

If You Want Your Freedom, You Have To Be Willing To Work Hard To Exercise It.

Human Beings Are Always Going To Find Interesting Ways Of Making A Mess Of Their Lives. It's Human Nature.

I Have To Keep Myself In Check When I Go To The Kids' Sports Events. I Sit Waaay In The Back. I Make Sure I Don't Do Too Much Cheering, You Know What I Mean? I'm Still Not Quite Adjusted To This Modern School Of Thought: Oh, It Doesn't Matter Who Wins. I'm Not All The Way There Yet, But I Accept It From The Back Row.

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.

I Don't Think Many People Have A Very Good Understanding Of Leisure And The Importance It Plays In Our Lives.

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.

I've Spent More Time Playing Golf Than Anything Else The Last 18 Years. Just Wanted To Be An 80s-shooter. Got There, Too.

Age Is The First Limitation On Roles That I've Ever Had To Encounter, And I Hit That Awhile Ago.

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.

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.

Race Against Time

I Believe In Making All Movies At Their Most Reasonable. That I Get A Lot Of Money As An Actor Is Because Nobody Else Will Get It If I Don't.

Million Bucks Won't See You Through A Major Health Crisis.

I've Always Understood Money; It's Not A Big Mystical Thing To Me.

There Is No Way You Can Get People To Believe You On Screen If They Know Who You Really Are Through Television.

I Goddamn Near Lost My Nose. And I Like It. I Like Breathing Through It.

Hiding Something

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.

Ok, The Director Makes The Movie. But Some Movies Can't Get Made Without Someone Like Me In Them.

Dissembling Is A Common Tool Of The Anger Junkie.

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.

I'm Not Hard To Get Along With.

I Didn't Know That My Sister Was Really My Mother Until I Was Thirty-seven Years Old. But Life Has Taught Me That There Have Been A Lot Of Things That I Didn't Know.

My Motto Is: More Good Times.

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'm Not A Power Person. I Like Everyone To Be On An Equal Footing.

I Love Discourse. I'm Dying To Have My Mind Changed. I'm Probably The Only Liberal Who Read Treason, By Ann Coulter. I Want To Know, You Understand? I Like Listening To Everybody. This To Me Is The Elixir Of Life.

You Are More Thoughtful Because You Don't Act As Quickly Anymore. When I Turned 70 It Was The First Time I Felt Young For My Age. Fifty Dropped On Me Like A Ton Of Bricks - There Is Something About That Number - But When 70 Came Along I Felt Good About It.

When It's Over For A Woman, It's Over. You're Not Getting An Appeal.

I'm The Last Guy In The World To Feel Overlooked By The Academy.

There's No Point Dwelling On What Might Or Could Have Been. You Just Have To Go Forward.

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.

No Issue Is More Compelling Than The Air We Breathe, Be It Hot Or Cold, Be It Hawk Or Human.

There's Probably No One Who Understands Method Acting Better Academically Than I Do, Or Actually Uses It More In His Work. But It's Funny - Nobody Really Sees That. It's Perception Versus Reality, I Suppose.

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.

The Only Way To Break A Bad Habit Was To Replace It With A Better Habit.

Take Caution In Your Tone, Commander. I'm A Fair Man, But This -- Heat Is Making Me Absolutely Crazy.

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.

When We Make Mistakes They Call It Evil. When God Makes Mistakes They Call It Nature!

Making Mistakes

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.

Through All Permutations And Youthful Poetry, I Came To Believe That The Film Actor Was The Great "literateur" Of His Time.

Women -- A Mistake, Or Did He Do It To Us On Purpose?

With My Sunglasses On, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without Them, I'm Fat And 60.

A Lot Of People Manage To Find Common Ground And Not Let Disagreements Or Tensions Build Up And Destroy Them, And Other People Break Up Or Get Divorced. I Don't Think Anything Is Ever Going To Change That Situation. You Simply Try To Find An Accommodation And An Understanding With Another Person And Work From There.

There's A Tacit Agreement Today That The White Male Is The Only Legitimate Target For Any And All Satire, Criticism, And So Forth. And We Pretty Much Just Accept It.

Believe It Or Not, I Supported Richard Nixon On The Issue Of Presidential Privilege. How Could Anyone Conceive Of Being The President Of The United States And Think That Every Single Thing That You Say Or Do Can Become A Part Of The Public Record? It Just Seems So Stupid To Me.

Almost Everybody's Happy To Be A Fool For Love.

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.

You Look At Someone Long Enough, You Discover Their Humanity.

Good As It Gets

The Stage Has A Certain Discipline. But The Ultimate Standard Is More Exacting In Film, Because You Have To See Yourself And You Are Your Own Toughest Critic.

I Don't Play Golf Competitively. I Tell Everybody That I Cheat So They Won't Gamble With Me. That's Why You Can't Watch Football. Everybody's Gambling. They Don't Want To Watch The Game; They Watch The Spread.

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 Want My Kids To Have A Deep, Inner Feeling That It's Alright To Be Happy, That You Don't Have To Be Constantly Manufacturing Problems That You Don't Really Have.

I Was Invited To Join The Mgm Cartoon Department. But If I'd Started Work In Animation I'd Have Had To Take A Cut In Salary, So I Didn't.

I Eat Breakfast 300 Yards From 4000 Cubans, Who Are Trained To Kill Me, So Don't Think For One Second That You Can Come Down Here, Flash Your Badge And Make Me Nervous.

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.

Liberalism Is The Right To Question Without Being Called A Heretic. That's What America Did For The World.

When You Look At Life Retrospectively You Rarely Regret Anything That You Did, But You Might Regret Things That You Didn't Do.

There Is One Thing I Know About Creative Conflict: Once My Argument Is Exhausted, I Am Not Going To Be Unhappy Whether It Moves In My Direction Or Away.

How Would I Like To Be Seen? Very Endearing, Charming, Intelligent, Handsome.

Kids Are Life's Only Guaranteed, Bona Fide Upside Surprise.

He [castro] Is A Genius. We Spoke About Everything.

I Mean, It's Real Hard To Be Free When You Are Bought And Sold In The Marketplace.

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.

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.

It's Very Easy To Go Down, So Always Live Up. Incline Yourself Upward.

The Blues And Jazz Will Live Forever... So Will The Delta And The Big Easy.

I Think The Greeks Invented Sports As An Antidote To Philosophy.

And This, Incidentally, Is My Thumbnail Sketch Of American Marriage: A Woman Sees A Man; She Likes Him. Now She Jumps On This Thing And Rides It To Some Kind Of Standstill. Then She Changes It And Trains It, And To The Exact Degree That She's Able To Do This, She Disrespects Him.

I Usually Don't Get Too Bogged Down With My Personal Problems Because That's A One-way Street If You Get Yourself Into A Negative Frame Of Mind And Only See The Dark Side Of Life.

I Am A Person Who Is Trained To Look Other People In The Eye. But I Can't Look Into The Eyes Of Everyone Who Wants To Look Into Mine; I Can't Emotionally Cope With That Kind Of Volume. Sunglasses Are Part Of My Armor.

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.

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 Used To Think That One Of The Great Signs Of Security Was The Ability To Just Walk Away.

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.

I've Always Fought Against Being Controlled And Manipulated And Stomped Upon By Circumstances.

I Don't Have Any Fear Of Intimacy, But Rather Thrive On It, Which Is Rare In A Public Person.

You Can Follow The Action, Which Gets You Good Pictures. You Can Follow Your Instincts, Which Will Probably Get You In Trouble. Or, You Can Follow The Money, Which Nine Times Out Of Ten Will Get You Closer To The Truth.

I Have A Lot Of Vanity.

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.

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.

Being Pigeonholed Is The Death Of All Actors.

Acting Is Everybody's Favorite Second Job.

I Would Never Complain About My Life, Even Though I Really Would Like To Have A Mate.

I Don't Want To Direct A Movie As Good As Antonioni, Or Kubrick, Or Polanski, Or Whoever. I Want It To Be My Own. I Think I've Got The Seed Of It And, What's More, That I Can Make Movies That Are Different And Informed By My Taste.

I Never Thought In Terms Of Typing Myself, Because I Wasn't That Successful. After An Actor Has Done A Few Pieces Of Work, His Naïveté Is The Part Of The Craft He Has To Nurture Most.

I Love Women Who Have A Strong Sense Of Themselves Because I Know I Have A Pretty Good Idea Of What I Want Out Of Life And I Like To Be Around Other People Who Are Also Pretty Secure. It Just Makes Things Easier.

The Camera Photographs What's There.

Women Are Sort Of Like Motorcycle Gangs With Me. They Get Really Shy And Polite. I Don't Know Why.

Motorcycle Gangs

Time Keeps No Measure When True Friends Are Parted, No Record Day By Day; The Sands Move Not For Those Who, Loyal-hearted, Friendship's Firm Laws Obey.

Well, A Girlfriend Once Told Me Never To Fight With Anybody You Don't Love.

I Don't Want People To Know What I'm Actually Like. It's Not Good For An Actor.

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 Today 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.

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'd Give My Goddamned Soul For Just A Glass Of Beer.

I'm Definitely Still Wild At Heart.

In My Last Year Of School, I Was Voted Class Optimist And Class Pessimist. Looking Back, I Realize I Was Only Half Right.

I Love Writing, But I Stopped Because I Felt I Was More Effective Approaching Filmmaking From A Different Vantage Point.

I Look For A Director With A Script He Likes A Lot, But I'm Probably After The Directors More Than Anything.

I'm The Age Where We Didn't Have Television As Kids. So When I Saw My Nieces And Nephews Watching Howdy Doody, Kukla, Fran And Ollie, And So Forth, I Thought The World Had Gone Mad.

When They Say I'm A Great Actor, I Close My Ears Because It's Not Good For You To Think That Way.

I Think Of A Man And I Take Away Reason And Accountability.

Sometimes A Bit Of Distance Can Be Very Healthy. You Can Go Away By Yourself On A Trip And Come Back Very Glad To Be With Your Partner Because You've Cleared Your Head Out Of All The Negativity.

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.

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 Did Not Want To Be Coming Off The Stage At The Mercy Of What Somebody Else Told Me I Did.

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.

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've Been Too Many Places. I'm Like The Bad Penny.

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.

I Suppose I Can Do More For A Script As An Actor Than As A Writer - In The Film Sense.

The Average Celebrity Meets, In One Year, Ten Times The Amount Of People That The Average Person Meets In His Entire Life.

If I Were An Arab-american, I Would Insist On Being Profiled. This Is Not The Time For Civil Rights. There Are Larger Issues For Americans.

The Fuel For The Sports Fan Is The Ability To Have Private Theories.

Financially, I've Lost Money And Made Money, But I Know My Way Around Financially.

A Lot Of People Can't Remember Things Because They Weren't Actually There To Begin With - They Don't Take It All In.

I Certainly Knew My Father. He Just Didn't Happen To Be My Biological Father.

Biological Fathers

This Town Needs An Enema!

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.

I Just Know That Sameness, Repetition, And Conceptualizing Are The Acting Craft's Adversaries, And It Seems More Intelligent To Start Off Within A Framework Where Those Things Are, To Some Degree, Taken Out Of Your Hands.

I Think The Greeks Invented Sports As An Antidote To Philosophy. In Sports There Are Absolute Rules. It's Not, What About This? What About That? Either You're Safe Or You're Out. It's Ten Yards Or It's Not. It's In The Hoop Or Out Of The Hoop. It's Certain.

You're Anachronistic When You Know That Your Feelings Aren't Going To Have Any Effect On Anything.

I Hate Giving Advice, Because People Won't Take It.

I Don't Know If This Is A True Statistic, But I Heard Somewhere That There Are Three Times As Many Single Women Over Forty As Single Men. That's What We Got From The Women's Movement. The Chickens Have Come Home To Roost.

You Can't Say, "i'm Gonna Make A Hit Movie." You're As Dead As You Could Be.

We Live, We Die, And The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round.

I'd Prefer If People Had No Impressions Of Me. As A Kid, I Had To Tell My Own Family, "please, Just Don't Talk About Me!" Because They Always Got It Wrong. Always. I Just Didn't Want Them To Tell Anyone Anything About Me.

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 Very Contra My Constituency In Terms Of Abortion Because I'm Positively Against It. I Don't Have The Right To Any Other View. My Only Emotion Is Gratitude, Literally, For My Life.

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.

Once You've Been Really Bad In A Movie, There's A Certain Kind Of Fearlessness You Develop.

You Can't Handle The Truth!

I'm A New Wave Baby, So I Got Very Stimulated By Foreign Film.

A Man Needs A Private Life. With No Ability To Have A Private Life, One Thing Leads To Another, And Before You Know It We Have Bill And Monica. We Need To Get Real About Things. Humans Are Humans. Why Should We Expect More?

I Envy People Of Faith. I'm Incapable Of Believing In Anything Supernatural.

Once I Got Started Acting I Loved It.

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