Jack Lemmon Quotes

My four friends were John Kerr, who became a star, Paul Newman, Jimmy Dean, and Jack Lemmon. ~ Dick Van Patten

It's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is. ~ Jack Lemmon

When I'm reading material, if I'm a little bit afraid of a part and I'm willing to admit that to myself, then I'll do it, definitely. If I'm worried about being able to do it, to get it - I absolutely just love it. ~ Jack Lemmon

Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon. ~ Billy Wilder

Unless you're Jack Lemmon or Cary Grant, there are few guys who can do comedy and drama. ~ Steve Guttenberg

I was doing a play out in L.A. 20-some-odd years ago called 'Goose and Tomtom' by David Rabe, and somebody saw it and the next thing I know I'm doing the table read of the film version of 'Glengarry Glen Ross' with Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon - one of the great films of our generation. ~ Richard Schiff

I think whatever you do, if you are going to do well or even if you don't do it well, you have to have a passion for it, and I am passionate about it. I love it. I respect it and it gets me. I get off on acting. ~ Jack Lemmon

Jack Lemmon is my best friend and he's a very wonderful actor. A very talented, very funny man. A lovely man. We're like brothers! We are gifts to each other. He's such a fun personality. There will only ever be one Jack Lemmon. ~ Tony Curtis

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. You must reach the emotional and intellectual level of ability where you can go out stark naked, emotionally, in front of an audience. ~ Jack Lemmon

Success is always somebody else's opinion of you; but it doesn't amount to a damn compared to your own opinion of yourself. ~ Jack Lemmon

Dying is not a sin. Not living is. ~ Jack Lemmon

Acting doesn't have anything to do with listening to the words. We never really listen, in general conversation, to what the other person is saying. We listen to what they mean. And what they mean is often quite apart from the words. When you see a scene between two actors that goes really well you can be sure they're not listening to each other - they're feeling what the other person is trying to get at. Know what I mean? ~ Jack Lemmon

I have lost someone I loved as a brother, as a closest friend, and a remarkable human being. We have also lost one of the best damn actors we'll ever see. ~ Jack Lemmon

Anything truly worthwhile does not come easy. If it did, it would not be all that worthwhile. ~ Jack Lemmon

No matter how successful you get, always send the elevator back down. ~ Jack Lemmon

Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh ... I'm a man.
Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.
~ Billy Wilder

Nobody deserves this much money - certainly not an actor. ~ Jack Lemmon

Stay humble. Always answer your phone - no matter who else is in the car. ~ Jack Lemmon

I'd rather make the cut in the Crosby than win another Oscar. ~ Jack Lemmon

She has never messed up a single take yet. Recently I was in a scene and there was a table covered with a cloth. When the director said cut, I saw a black nose and two paws inching out from under the cloth. She had hidden there without making a sound until we were done with the scene. She wanted to be nearer to me. ~ Jack Lemmon

If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball. ~ Jack Lemmon

Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure. ~ Jack Lemmon

People are probably correct when they see me as the so-called Everyman. I'm attracted primarily to contemporary characters. I understand them and their frustrations. ~ Jack Lemmon

I would rather play Hamlet with no rehearsal than TV golf. ~ Jack Lemmon

How she moves. That's just like Jell-O on springs. She must have some sort of built-in motors. I tell you, it's a whole different sex! Joe: What are you afraid of? Nobody's asking you to have a baby. ~ Jack Lemmon

Simply put, the Law of Attraction states that you will attract into your life whatever you focus on. Whatever you give your energy and attention to will come back to you. So, if you stay focused on the good and positive things in your life, you will automatically attract more good and positive things into your life. ~ Jack Canfield

Canadians can get Parliament working again. Here's how to do that: elect more New Democrats. ~ Jack Layton

And when the fog's over and the stars and the moon come out at night it'll be a beautiful sight. ~ Jack Kerouac

Because love, compassion, and joy can lead to excessive attachment, their warmth needs to be balanced with equanimity. Because equanimity can lead to excessive detachment, its coolness needs to be balanced with love, compassion, and joy. Established together, these radiant qualities express mental harmony. ~ Jack Kornfield

Don't be too proud to take lessons. I'm not. ~ Jack Nicklaus

Few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention. ~ Jack Woodford

Put the gun to my head and paint walls with my brains. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

We were young and the focus on human suffering gave our retreats gravitas. But suffering is not the goal, it is the beginning of the path. Now in the retreat I teach, I also encourage participants to awaken to their innate joy. From the very beginning I encourage them to allow the moments of joy and well-being to deepen, to spread throughout their body and mind. Many of us are conditioned to fear joy and happiness, yet joy is necessary for awakening. As the Persian mystic Rumi instructs us, 'When you go to a garden, do you look at thorns or flowers? Spend more time with roses and jasmine. ~ Jack Kornfield

We may all end up dead, but we're sticking it to them in the meantime. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

Step into your fear. ~ Jack Canfield

I believe in unconditional love and equality. Jesus Christ exemplified these qualities. ~ Jack Canfield

When people say to me, 'What do you think of rap music?', my answer is, 'There's no such thing. There's rap, and there's music.' ~ Jack Jones

A dog is one of the few remaining reasons why some people can be persuaded to go for a walk. ~ Jack Canfield

In 1933, the Nazis came to power and the more systematic persecution of the Jews followed quickly. Laws were enacted which excluded Jewish children from higher education in public schools. ~ Jack Steinberger

The team with the best players usually does win - this is why you need to invest the majority of your time and energy in developing your people. ~ Jack Welch

It's pretty amazing to see a guy, while steering at the wheel, suddenly raise his little 300 dollar German camera with one hand and snap something that's on the move in front of him, and through an unwashed windshield at that. (On the road with Robert Frank, 1958) ~ Jack Kerouac

We can struggle with what is. We can judge and blame others or ourselves. Or we can accept what cannot be changed. Peace comes from an honorable and open heart accepting what is true. Do we want to remain stuck? Or to release the fearful sense of self and rest kindly where we are? ~ Jack Kornfield

But when the wizard is onstage as the main character, you have to adopt what I call the Jack Vance Rule. I call it this because Jack Vance is the first author successfully and adroitly to have applied this rule in his The Dying Earth. The Jack Vance Rule is: (1) The wizard has to be able to do something unusual, or else he is not a wizard, (2) he cannot do everything, or else there is no drama; therefore (3) the story teller has to communicate to the reader whatever the dividing line is that separates what the wizard can do from what he cannot do, so that the reader can have a reasonable expectation of knowing what the wizard can and cannot do. ~ John C. Wright

Lynch is an ordinary, smalltown guy and he just sees strange things in people. ~ Jack Nance

BBC3 even started their biggest shows, like Jack Whitehall's 'Bad Education,' they premiered on the iPlayer a week before it went on TV. I think it should always be at the forefront of what is fresh and exciting, and therefore it should be the first channel to exist online. ~ James Corden

I left with my canvas bag in which a few fundamental things were packed and took off for the Pacific Ocean with the fifty dollars in my pocket. ~ Jack Kerouac

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

I'm a better person when I'm with you. I don't want to stop being that person. I don't want you to go ~ Alex Flinn

Hitch hiked a thousand
miles and brought
You wine ~ Jack Kerouac

Lars is played by Ryan Gosling, the Prince of Tics, whose idea of acting is to wait a few beats before reacting to other people's remarks, as if acting were merely a matter of adhering to the seven-second delay rule. Jack Nicholson has made a career out of doing this sort of thing, as did Paul Newman, as did Marlon Brando (who the other two learned it from), but they didn't do it all the time and they were more fun to look at ... Lars And The Real Girl joins a number of other recent films in the category of motion pictures where the director doesn't know that his protagonist is unsympathetic. ~ Joe Queenan

The public's nerves are raw and edgy. You have to be discreet and understanding about the films you are showing. ~ Jack Valenti

Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they've got. It's a killer. ~ Jack Welch

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

When Jack Benny has a party, you not only bring your own scotch, you bring your own rocks. ~ George Burns

Nd that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didnt know who I was ~ Jack Kerouac

I believe that when Paul Martin cancelled affordable housing across this country it produced a dramatic rise in homelessness and deaths due to homelessness and I've always said I hold him responsible for that. ~ Jack Layton

The successful people seem to have blinders on. Everything is straight ahead. They go forward and know exactly what they're going to do once they've made up their mind to do it, and by God they don't look sideways. ~ Jack Nicklaus

Death is the heritage of life; a man's vitality is like air in a bladder. Poinct this bubble and away, away, away, flees life, like the color of fading dream. ~ Jack Vance

The capitalism we are in now is already coming to an end ~ Jack Goldstone

The fruit of our labors is sweet when the work is consecrated to God. But we have to be able to weather the conditions - the winds, the rain or the drought, the brilliant sun and sometimes the bitter cold. Sometimes our work needs to be directed at improving our ground rather than excusing our own harvests because the place we have been given is a little hard; there are too many rocks, too many hills, too little top soil. If we focus on where we are instead of what we can do with our plot, we will find our efforts significantly diminished. ~ Elaine L. Jack

Olivia dared not ask, but she had to know. It seemed unlikely her husband could have made a worse choice than Jack Dodger, but if he was her husband's first who would serve as his second? The devil himself? Who is appointed as my son's guardian in that will? ~ Lorraine Heath

Babe." Jack lifts my chin, so he's looking into my eyes. I'm staring into his. "I want you. Like I never wanted anyone else. In my life. ~ J.E. Trif

My mother was 45 when she had me, so when I was in high school my parents were the same age as my friends' grandparents. ~ Jack White

Every day affords individual people moments when they can shake off everything that is false and can view things from their perspective. ~ Jack D. Zipes

I've worked with Jack Warner and Jimmy Stewart - and Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp twice. I've had dinners with Fred Astaire and Cary Grant. ~ Peter Guber

Never get satisfied. The minute you stop trying, you go downhill. ~ Jack LaLanne

I weave the company into what we laughingly call 'Jack's novel.' I write this novel for them about who they are and what's going on in their world. When I had 90 people in 'Porgy and Bess,' each had a story, history and family relationship. ~ Jack O'Brien

I have a feeling I may have been born a century and a half too late, two classes too low, and in the wrong country... ~ Jack Rollins

You're in my blood like poison. And I'd die because of you. ~ Caitlin Kittredge