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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.

-Jack Nicholson

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I Wasn't A Babe

Jack Nicholson

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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.

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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.

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

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'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.

I Can't Hit On Women In Public Any More. I Didn't Decide This; It Just Doesn't Feel Right At My Age.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 Have Mainly Been Interested In Acting. I Think It's A Great Job, A Fine Way To Live Your Life.

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.

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.

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.

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

Making Mistakes

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

I'm Definitely Still Wild At Heart.

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

I Don't Even Own A Cell Phone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Dissembling Is A Common Tool Of The Anger Junkie.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I'm Not Hard To Get Along With.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Live In The Now

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

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 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.

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

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?

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

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 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.

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.

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

Being Pigeonholed Is The Death Of All Actors.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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'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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Hiding Something

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Once I Got Started Acting I Loved It.

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.

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.

This Town Needs An Enema!

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.

Charlize Theron And Cate Blanchett Are Very Good Actresses.

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

For A Long Time, I Was Afraid To Be Alone. I Had To Learn How To Be Alone. And There Are Still Times When I Think, Uh-oh! I Gotta Talk To Somebody Here Or I'm Gonna Go Crazy! But I Like To Be Alone. Now I Do. I Really Do. There's A Big Luxury In Solitude.

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.

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

You Make Me Want To Be A Better Man.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Biological Fathers

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

My Motto Is: More Good Times.

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.

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.

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

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

You Can't Handle The Truth!

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

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

People Who Speak In Metaphors Should Shampoo My Crotch.

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

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

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

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

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