Jack Nicholson Quotes

Do you think God knew what he was doing when he created woman?

Everyone pretty much acknowledges that he's the man, and I still feel that underrates him.

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.

How would I like to be seen? Very endearing, charming, intelligent, handsome.

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 look for a director with a script he likes a lot, but I'm probably after the directors more than anything.

I think the Greeks invented sports as an antidote to philosophy.

I wanted to be the best actor possible. I worked very hard at the craft of it.

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 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 learned a long time ago in Hollywood that the only person I should vote for is myself.

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've always had an urge to feed my need to have fun and feel free. I don't see any interesting alternatives.

Age is the first limitation on roles that I've ever had to encounter, and I hit that awhile ago.

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 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.

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've always fought against being controlled and manipulated and stomped upon by circumstances.

Just let the wardrobe do the acting.

I don't think many people have a very good understanding of leisure and the importance it plays in our lives.

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.

When we make mistakes they call it evil. When God makes mistakes they call it Nature!

A lot of people in the middle of their lives have a secret yearning for more romance.

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 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.

It's very easy to go down, so always live up. Incline yourself upward.

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 am in an age group where it is rude to discuss money, and now it is all anyone cares about.

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.

Being pigeonholed is the death of all actors.

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'll tell you one thing: Don't ever give anybody your best advice, because they're not going to follow it.

What's beautiful is all that counts, pal. That's ALL that counts.

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 used to think that one of the great signs of security was the ability to just walk away.

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.

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.

I don't want people to know what I'm actually like. It's not good for an actor.

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 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.

Dissembling is a common tool of the anger junkie.

Financially, I've lost money and made money, but I know my way around financially.

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.

When they say I'm a great actor, I close my ears because it's not good for you to think that way.

When you use a dialect, you worry that the people you're imitating will think you're making fun of them.

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.

The most difficult thing about being well known? Getting out of a hotel room at 4am.

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.