Jack Nicholson Quotes

Million bucks won't see you through a major health crisis. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I'd love to do like a modern day 'Shining' and play the Jack Nicholson role. ~ Janet Montgomery

Being pigeonholed is the death of all actors. ~ Jack Nicholson

I assume most of the characters I play are exactly like me. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

This town needs an enema! ~ Jack Nicholson

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

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I'm not Jack Nicholson. I'm not Brando. But I do mumble. ~ Benicio Del Toro

Working with Jack [Nicholson] is sort of like standing in front of the Grand Canyon. ~ Diane Keaton

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner. ~ Douglas Adams

You make me want to be a better man. ~ Jack Nicholson

When I was first painting the Monopoly guy I received a criticism. People said, "You're just painting cartoon characters, anyone can do that," but I'm actually a very skilled artist. That's why I released a Jack Nicholson portrait right after that that was very detailed in the face to show my skills. ~ Alec Monopoly

I once drew a picture of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. But I put it away
after a Feng Shui expert told me about the bad vibes ~ David James

I'm a scamp. I don't deny it. I like myself. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

The average celebrity meets, in one year, ten times the amount of people that the average person meets in his entire life. ~ Jack Nicholson

Once I got started acting I loved it. ~ Jack Nicholson

I'm the last guy in the world to feel overlooked by the Academy. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I've spent more time playing golf than anything else the last 18 years. Just wanted to be an 80s-shooter. Got there, too. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

You are more thoughtful because you don't act as quickly anymore. When I turned 70 it was the first time I felt young for my age. Fifty dropped on me like a ton of bricks - there is something about that number - but when 70 came along I felt good about it. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I only take Viagra when I'm with more than one woman. ~ Jack Nicholson

I envy people of faith. I'm incapable of believing in anything supernatural. ~ Jack Nicholson

You can't handle the truth! ~ Jack Nicholson

Michael [Douglas] was just leaving the TV series The Streets of San Francisco and he said, 'Dad, let me try it.' I thought, 'Well, if I couldn't make it ... ' So, I gave it to him and he got the money, the director and the cast. The biggest disappointment for me, I always wanted to play McMurphy. They got a young actor, Jack Nicholson. I thought, 'Oh God. He will be terrible.' Then I saw the picture and, of course, he was great in it! That was my biggest disappointment that turned out to be one of the things I'm most proud of because my son Michael did it. I couldn't do it, but Michael did it. ~ Kirk Douglas

I'm going insane. Going insane in the snowy mountains like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, except without the spooky hotel. ~ Kristen Ashley

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I was selling real estate at the time, in Pacific Palisades, California, so imagine that: getting a note and a bottle of champagne from Jack Nicholson when I'd barely made a dime as an actor. It really kept me going. ~ Kurt Fuller

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

TV stars are cool. Even if their characters are less than admirable, they come across as somehow sympathetic, maybe even neighborly. They are, after all, people you invite into your home every week. If you don't like them, you won't watch them.

Movie stars, by contrast, are hot. They have to blaze so fiercely that they fill a screen forty feet high and demand the attention of a crowded theater.

That's why very few TV stars have graduated successfully to features. It requires not only different skills but a different personality. You have to go from amiable to commanding.

Likewise, some movie stars are simply too big for television. Jack Nicholson is riveting on-screen, but you wouldn't want him in your living room week after week. The television simply couldn't contain his personality. ~ Walter Jon Williams

I have a lot of vanity. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

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

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

Comedy is more difficult. You can look at scenes when you're doing a drama like, "Maybe it works," but in comedy, when you're doing it, either it works or it doesn't. You have to keep doing it until it does, and the requirement is more. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

I was never really a character actor - I was a leading man who was always cast as a character. I wanted to be Jack Nicholson or Jean Gabin. ~ Robert Shaw

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I admire James Franco. I admire somebody like Jack Nicholson. Anyone who just does movies for the sake of making movies and takes big risks. ~ Jack Kilmer

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

Here comes Johnny! ~ Jack Nicholson

I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me. ~ Jack Nicholson

Just because you're perfectionist doesn't mean you're perfect. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I've never lost a friend over work. I come from a small-town environment and I remember my childhood impressions that, if you were a conniver or a fink or whatever, everybody knew about it and you were a louse for the rest of your life. So I never lost those values in some way. ~ Jack Nicholson

I guess this proves there are as many nuts in the Academy as anywhere else. ~ Jack Nicholson

Frankly, I got into the movies because I like the movies a lot. ~ Jack Nicholson

I've always fought against being controlled and manipulated and stomped upon by circumstances. ~ Jack Nicholson

I am a person who is trained to look other people in the eye. ~ Jack Nicholson

I like to not care that much about criticism, but I do care about it. ~ Jack Nicholson

I'm not a huge scary movie kind of guy; like, I don't do slasher movies, because I'm really squeamish. But if I had to pick a favorite, it would definitely be 'The Shining' with Jack Nicholson. Not only is that a scary movie, it's just a flat out classic. ~ Brendan Robinson

Most of the early part of an actor's career, you do the jobs you get. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

Believe it or not, I supported Richard Nixon on the issue of presidential privilege. How could anyone conceive of being the president of the United States and think that every single thing that you say or do can become a part of the public record? It just seems so stupid to me. ~ Jack Nicholson

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 central to the idea of the movie. ~ Jack Nicholson

Listening to people espouse beliefs different from mine is informative, not threatening, because the only thing that can alter my worldview is a new and undeniable truth, and contrary to what Jack Nicholson says in 'A Few Good Men', I CAN handle the truth. ~ Michael J. Fox

I have never lied to you, I have always told you some version of the truth. ~ Jack Nicholson

I suppose I can do more for a script as an actor than as a writer - in the film sense. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

What's the first image that comes to mind when you think of a mental hospital? Jack Nicholson in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' right? We need to change that perception, and places like this one are doing that. ~ Deborah Norville

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

The fuel for the sports fan is the ability to have private theories. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson is fairly gifted. We were at the Sistine Chapel, and everybody went from looking straight up to looking across the room at him. ~ Greg Kinnear

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

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

What's beautiful is all that counts, pal. That's all that counts. ~ Jack Nicholson

It makes me feel good that I can now sit there and go, I've worked with Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, all the great actors that I've worked with ... Sir Ben Kingsley. ~ Aaron Eckhart

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I've worked with Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro and Tom Hanks. I've worked with some really good directors: Woody Allen, Paul Schrader ... I've really worked with a lot of people. But I'm intimidated by them, and I'm always thinking, "Oh, my God, he's not going to like me, and I'm going to get fired,". ~ Kurt Fuller

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

Having a character change during the course of the screenplay is not a requirement if it doesn't fit your character. But transformation, change, seems to be an essential aspect of our humanity, especially at this time in our culture. I think we're all a little like Melvin (Jack Nicholson) in As Good as it Gets. Melvin may be complex and fastidious as a person, but his dramatic need is expressed toward the end of the film when he says, 'When I'm with you I want to be a better person.' I think we all want that. Change, transformation, is a constant of life, and if you can impel some kind of emotional change within your character, it creates an arc of behavior and adds another dimension to who he/she is. ~ Syd Field

I was in an acting class taught by Eric Morris, and Jack Nicholson was in the class. He wrote the script for 'Head', so all of us in the class got little tiny parts in the movie. ~ Teri Garr

My dad is a Jack Nicholson lookalike and a frustrated performer, my mother's into reading and poetry. I suppose the thing I owe them most is my confidence. ~ Michael Sheen

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I remember, around age ten, beholding the scene in The Shining in which the hot young woman whom Jack Nicholson is lewdly embracing in the haunted hotel bathroom ages rapidly in his arms, screeching from nubile chick to putrefying corpse within seconds. I understood that the scene was supposed to represent some kind of primal horror. This was The Shining, after all. But the image of that decaying, cackling crone, her arms outstretched in desire toward the man who is backing away, has stayed with me for three decades, as a type of friend. She's part baths-ghost, part mad-Naomi. She didn't get the memo about being beyond wanting or being wanted. Or perhaps she just means to scare the shit out of him, which she does. ~ Maggie Nelson

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

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

People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch. ~ Jack Nicholson

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

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

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

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. ~ Jack Nicholson

I've been in movies with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson - but I was on 'The Simpsons,' and finally, in the eyes of my children, I was a star. ~ Ed Begley, Jr.