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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.

-Jack Nicholson

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I Don't Want To

Jack Nicholson

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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

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.

Many Actors Will Try Something Different Once, But If It Isn't A Box Office Success They'll Never Do It Again. In My Opinion, There's No Point In Going On With This Job If You Do The Same Thing Over And Over Again.

The Minute That You're Not Learning I Believe You're Dead.

I'm Very Fortunate In The Sense That Outside Of Cohabitating Relationships And So Forth, I've Always Got On Just As Well With Women.

What's Beautiful Is All That Counts, Pal. That's All That Counts.

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

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

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

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.

I'll Tell You One Thing: Don't Ever Give Anybody Your Best Advice, Because They're Not Going To Follow It.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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 In The Past 12 Years And They'll Tell You It's A Different World And These People Are Strongly Misinformed By The Media, Peer Pressure.

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 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.

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

I Have Never Lied To You, I Have Always Told You Some Version Of The Truth.

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.

[on The Birth Of His Son After Having Had Two Daughters] I Finally Got It Right.

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.

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

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.

There's Only Two People In Your Life You Should Lie To... The Police And Your Girlfriend.

I'm Irish. I Think About Death All The Time.

Ireland And The Irish

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.

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

I've Always Thought Basketball Was The Best Sport, Although It Wasn't The Sport I Was Best At. It Was Just The Most Fun To Watch.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

That's What I Like About The Movie Business: You're Always In Contact With Wonderful And Interesting People.

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.

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

Never Rub Another Man's Rhubarb.

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.

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

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 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.

Being Pigeonholed Is The Death Of All Actors.

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

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

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.

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.

The Less People Know About Me, The Easier My Job Is.

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.

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

Good As It Gets

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.

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

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

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 Am In An Age Group Where It Is Rude To Discuss Money, And Now It Is All Anyone Cares About.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

People Who Speak In Metaphors Should Shampoo My Crotch.

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

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

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.

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 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 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.

Just Because You're Perfectionist Doesn't Mean You're Perfect.

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

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.

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

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

Beer, It's The Best Damn Drink In The World.

Dissembling Is A Common Tool Of The Anger Junkie.

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

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 Was Particularly Proud Of My Performance As The Joker. I Considered It A Piece Of Pop Art.

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

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

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

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.

I've Never Lost A Friend Over Work. I Come From A Small-town Environment And I Remember My Childhood Impressions That, If You Were A Conniver Or A Fink Or Whatever, Everybody Knew About It And You Were A Louse For The Rest Of Your Life. So I Never Lost Those Values In Some Way.

Rest Of Your Life

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 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.

Staying Together Is A Challenge. We All Have To Accept Qualities In Other People That Aren't Always Exactly What We Want Or Need.

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.

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.

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

Most Of The Early Part Of An Actor's Career, You Do The Jobs You Get.

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.

It's Difficult For People Sometimes To Recognise When They're Happy. People Sometimes Seem To Me To Be Afraid To Be Happy.

I Resist All Established Beliefs. My Religion Basically Is To Be Immediate, To Live In The Now.

Live In The Now

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

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!?

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.

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

Having Kids Is The Most Innately Positive Thing That Anyone Can Do.

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

I'm A Scamp. I Don't Deny It. I Like Myself.

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.

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

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

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

I'm Not Hard To Get Along With.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Early On, If I Was Alone Two Three Nights In A Row, I'd Start Writing Poems About Suicide.

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

My Motto Is: More Good Times.

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.

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

Hiding Something

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

You Can't Handle The Truth!

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

Biological Fathers

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.

Do You Think God Knew What He Was Doing When He Created Woman?

At 55 I Said The Probability Is I Won't Have Another Relationship. I Just Didn't Want To Start Another Family. Between My Own Bizarre Criteria And Taste And The Fact That I'm Not Available For Many Things I Thought It Was Unlikely. Once You Know The Science About It, I Don't Think Anybody Should Consider Being Committed To A Real Eternal Relationship Until You're Through Something Called The Infatuation Circle.

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

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

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.

Charlize Theron And Cate Blanchett Are Very Good Actresses.

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.

The Camera Photographs What's There.

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

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

Making Mistakes

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.

There Are Many Directors In The Middle Range Who've Made Mostly Successful Pictures, And Then There Are A Few Great Directors Who've Had Some Successes And Some Failures. I Suppose My Life Would Be Smoother If I Wasn't Almost Totally Enamored Of The Latter Category.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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.

I Have A Lot Of Vanity.

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 Don't Even Own A Cell Phone.

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.

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

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.

Children Give Your Life A Resonance That It Can't Have Without Them.

I Learned A Long Time Ago In Hollywood That The Only Person I Should Vote For Is Myself.

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

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

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

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.

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 Guess This Proves There Are As Many Nuts In The Academy As Anywhere Else.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

Motorcycle Gangs

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

A Lot Of People In The Middle Of Their Lives Have A Secret Yearning For More Romance.

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

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