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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.

-Jack Nicholson

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I Think It's Good

Jack Nicholson

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Once I Got Started Acting I Loved It.

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

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

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

Ireland And The Irish

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Live In The Now

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Just Let The Wardrobe Do The Acting.

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.

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

Biological Fathers

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

Being Pigeonholed Is The Death Of All Actors.

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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.

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

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You Make Me Want To Be A Better Man.

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

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

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.

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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Have A Lot Of Vanity.

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

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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.

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.

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!?

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'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.

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 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 Don't Even Own A Cell Phone.

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

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

Good As It Gets

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

I'm Definitely Still Wild At Heart.

I Don't Have Any Plugs Or Tucks But People Do What They Want. I Look At It As Mutilation.

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!

You Can't Handle The Truth!

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

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

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.

Decent People Shouldn't Live Here. They'd Be Happier Some Place Else.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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 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 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.

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.

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 Motto Is: More Good Times.

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.

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

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

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.

Never Rub Another Man's Rhubarb.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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