Jack Nicholson Quotes

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.

Men dominate because of physicality, and thus they have mercy where women do not.

I don't have any plugs or tucks but people do what they want. I look at it as mutilation.

People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The blues and jazz will live forever... So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

You look at someone long enough, you discover their humanity.

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.

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.

Staying together is a challenge. We all have to accept qualities in other people that aren't always exactly what we want or need.

Everybody's old enough for a beer, ain't that right, Mule?

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.

Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide.

I would never want to vilify somebody who considered abortion murder. I was an illegitimate child myself. I may not have existed today.

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 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.

No issue is more compelling than the air we breathe, be it hot or cold, be it hawk or human.

Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier some place else.

That's what I like about the movie business: you're always in contact with wonderful and interesting people.

I was particularly proud of my performance as the Joker. I considered it a piece of pop art.

There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.

There's no point dwelling on what might or could have been. You just have to go forward.

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.

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.

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.

In my last year of school, I was voted Class Optimist and Class Pessimist. Looking back, I realize I was only half right.

He [Castro] is a genius. We spoke about everything.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Liberalism is the right to question without being called a heretic. That's what America did for the world.

I goddamn near lost my nose. And I like it. I like breathing through it.

Once you've been really bad in a movie, there's a certain kind of fearlessness you develop.

Children give your life a resonance that it can't have without them.

I would never complain about my life, even though I really would like to have a mate.

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.

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

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 certainly knew my father. He just didn't happen to be my biological father.

Almost everybody's happy to be a fool for love.

There are major influences on us that people are not aware of. There are big lies that nobody's willing to discuss.

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 have mainly been interested in acting. I think it's a great job, a fine way to live your life.

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.