Jack Nicholson
A lot of people can't remember things because they weren't actually there to begin with - they don't take it all in.
You only lie to two people in your life, your girlfriend and the police.
Well, a younger woman is a type, but not necessarily a type for me. And what is a younger woman? I mean, I'm pretty old. Almost everyone is younger.
In my last year of school, I was voted Class Optimist and Class Pessimist. Looking back, I realize I was only half right.
I have a lot of vanity.
When I am cast in a movie where I feel that the woman's part is more interesting, I usually start thinking about Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire. They seem to be the most clear actors when working with women.
I wanted to be the best actor possible. I worked very hard at the craft of it.
Age is the first limitation on roles that I've ever had to encounter, and I hit that awhile ago.
I've been too many places. I'm like the bad penny.
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.
Human beings are always going to find interesting ways of making a mess of their lives. It's human nature.Collection: Interesting
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 You're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn...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.Collection: Beautiful
I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.Collection: Departed
People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.Collection: People
If you want your freedom, you have to be willing to work hard to exercise it.Collection: Hard Work
It's difficult for people sometimes to recognise when they're happy. People sometimes seem to me to be afraid to be happy.Collection: People
When you look at life retrospectively you rarely regret anything that you did, but you might regret things that you didn't do.Collection: Regret
Just because you're perfectionist doesn't mean you're perfect.Collection: Writing
It's very easy to go down, so always live up. Incline yourself upward.Collection: Easy
I've always had an urge to feed my need to have fun and feel free. I don't see any interesting alternatives.Collection: Fun
Do you think God knew what he was doing when he created woman?Collection: Thinking
The only way to break a bad habit was to replace it with a better habit.Collection: Smoking
I only take Viagra when I'm with more than one woman.Collection: Viagra
We live, we die, and the wheels on the bus go round and round.Collection: Wheels
I have never lied to you, I have always told you some version of the truth.Collection: Lied
You can follow the action, which gets you good pictures. You can follow your instincts, which will probably get you in trouble. Or, you can follow the money, which nine times out of ten will get you closer to the truth.Collection: Truth
There's no point dwelling on what might or could have been. You just have to go forward.Collection: Attitude
You can't handle the truth!Collection: Movie
Men dominate because of physicality, and thus they have mercy where women do not.Collection: Men
You're anachronistic when you know that your feelings aren't going to have any effect on anything.Collection: Feelings
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.Collection: Men
Women -- a mistake, or did He do it to us on purpose?Collection: Mistake
No issue is more compelling than the air we breathe, be it hot or cold, be it hawk or human.Collection: Stars
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.Collection: Silly
When we make mistakes they call it evil. When God makes mistakes they call it Nature!Collection: Mistake
I love women who have a strong sense of themselves because I know I have a pretty good idea of what I want out of life and I like to be around other people who are also pretty secure. It just makes things easier.Collection: Strong
I'm very contra my constituency in terms of abortion because I'm positively against it. I don't have the right to any other view. My only emotion is gratitude, literally, for my life.Collection: Inspirational
I love discourse. I'm dying to have my mind changed. I'm probably the only liberal who read Treason, by Ann Coulter. I want to know, you understand? I like listening to everybody. This to me is the elixir of life.Collection: Listening
If you think you’re attractive, you’re always attractive.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Dark
When they say I'm a great actor, I close my ears because it's not good for you to think that way.Collection: Thinking
You look at someone long enough, you discover their humanity.Collection: Long
OK, the director makes the movie. But some movies can't get made without someone like me in them.Collection: Directors
As an actor, I want to give in to the collaboration with the director because I don't want my work to be all the same. The more this can be done with comfort, the more variety my work has had.Collection: Giving
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.Collection: Media
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.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Cutting
I suppose I can do more for a script as an actor than as a writer - in the film sense.Collection: Actors
I goddamn near lost my nose. And I like it. I like breathing through it.Collection: Hiding Something