Nick Nolte Quotes

Women are just more oriented toward feelings - and I don't mean that in a negative way. But with a male actor and a male director, the emotional exploration can only go so far. With a female director, you can end up exploring so many more depths.

All American males are failed athletes, and it was big time even if it was Little League. It meant a lot to you.

Violence isn't really my thing.

I never fought much. It just wasn't my thing. I suppose I could, but I've never got into fights. Not a real one.

It's fun to change your body and find new things that your body does because of the weight.

If you feel you have a film that's valid, you stick your ass on the line.

If you get yourself in a hole, you dig yourself out.

Hollywood is all made up, anyway. Especially the stories and angles that people want to pin on you.

Everyone chases a bit of what they say life is about: money, desire ... But when you stop chasing, you realise life is a rhythm and it's very peaceful, very quiet. You see, it's quite a miracle.

You work at a job, and you reach a certain level, and you're a little satisfied, and you keep going at it a little more, and you finally finish it. You go, 'Ah,' all your dopamine receptor sites are full. You're satiated.

When I was a kid, my dad went to World War II. I didn't know him. I was born in '41.

Electing a black president was probably the only coup America could pull off.

If you're older you want to tell stories about the pool of human life and living and to communicate, not only to your age group but to do an age group that can begin to understand, that has enough experience of life far beyond the taste of life.

When you start thinking about death more than sex, you know you're getting old.

Acting is a bit of a substitute for life.

I have a high degree of sensitivity, always have. I was very shy as a child. I don't know why that was.

I have a lot of scars, man. My mother said that a man is not a man unless he has a scar on his face. And what she meant by a scar was some kind of battle that you had to go through, whether it was psychological or physical. To her, a scar was actually beautiful and not something that marred you.

Asking for forgiveness is just one of the most painful kind of experiences.

No one wants to spend too long inside their own darkness.

If you had a cancer on your skin and had it burned it off, you'd wash it and clean it every day.

Now, there is always a tremendous fear of science and progressing forward into areas of the unknown and it is a valid fear. Some of the genetic alterations of food are a little edgy.

The difference between a murderer and myself is only that I choose not to do it. But I'm capable.

In 'Over the Hedge,' I played a bear, and I spent all this time listening to the sounds they make when they fight and mate, when they're angry or happy.

The thing about '48 Hrs.' that really isn't thought about much is that's the first film where the black and the white criticize each other.

First make peace inside yourself.

When women talk about their feelings, they're not asking for solutions.

Success is a very scary thing especially after you choose something and everything starts coming at you. It's absolutely frightening because the mind does things. It says, 'You've got to hold on to this or get away from this.

Nobody likes to change. There will always be resistance to change, and there always will be change. And the quicker you get to that, the easier it is. It's not such a difficult thing. If you entrench yourself and go, "By God, I will not change. I will not have this." Then, you're a dead man. We're great at adaptability. It's our strongest suit.

Actors are really working with bodies, with their minds, and with their emotions. Feelings, basically. That's what movies are about, going from one feeling to another.

A warrior is not about perfection or victory or invulnerability. He's about absolute vulnerability.

I never felt comfortable in real life very well. It's always been an awkward kind of thing for me and so when I hit the stage I just sensed freedom. I sensed, 'Here's a place that I can have all the experiences of life and not feel uncomfortable about it.'

There's no greater purpose than service to others.

I am a good sewer. My mother taught me how to sew.

You don't want to make awards the reason you're doing things.

Every generation will be challenged morally once in their life about its government, and they will have to say where they stand.

Ageing's a difficult thing, moving closer to death, but it's okay. I've had a good time living, so I'm gonna have a good time dying.

I'm pretty much of a physical actor.

Early on I decided that I was going to lie to the press. The best approach to talking about my personal life was to lie.

No one consciously wants to destroy themselves. It always comes in a disguise. But then you have to deal with it some way.

I like working with writer-directors because you can solve problems right there.

I never liked the Oscars. They didn't do too much for me at all. I felt like a big, vulnerable hunk of baloney being used to sell some products.

The only people who ever called me a rebel were people who wanted me to do what they wanted.

World War II affected the male population in a very detrimental way. They were happy to be home, happy to be alive, happy they won, but they could not express to anybody the horror they had been through.

Americans aren't good at accents, but the English are because their accents change. You go five or six blocks and the accent is different, so they are used to hearing different pitches. In America, you gotta travel maybe 10 states before you can really hear a difference.

After Civil Rights, it was very awkward for whites and blacks. We didn't know how to talk to each other.

About the only thing that'll stay with you that you can trust all your life is your breath. Your breath will be there at the very last, because when it stops, you will stop.

Acting is always therapeutic.

Peace, truthfully, is how you feel inside.

Success comes to you with luck and a lot of hard work, but it doesn't give you the right to be any better than anybody else.

I never caught on to being a bully.

We're very reluctant to change, even though we know that all things change, and especially our relationships are just determined to change.

Yes, you can get addicted to exercise.

Death isn't sad. The sad thing is: most people don't live at all.

The truth was that, you know, there was no reason to send me to Shattuck Military School. But it was a disciplinarian school.

How do I relax? Meditate, I guess. I quit golf. You twist your back and get all cranked up.

American society is still puritanical.

We truly have an ancient part of the brain that was about survival when we were prey but we seem to have gone past prey. We eat everything and nothing eats us.

I'm glad I never went to war.

I can't ad-lib, or not for long.

When you are making the one you are doing, you think it is the greatest film going. And then you do another one and it is a great film.

If I'm not a successful human being, who I am?

This is a service station, we offer service. There is no higher purpose.