Jack Nicholson
I know I can act. There aren't too many other jobs I know how to doCollection: Jobs
The stage has a certain discipline. But the ultimate standard is more exacting in film, because you have to see yourself and you are your own toughest critic.Collection: Discipline
I certainly knew my father. He just didn't happen to be my biological father.Collection: Father
I've always thought basketball was the best sport, although it wasn't the sport I was best at. It was just the most fun to watch.Collection: Basketball
If I were an Arab-American, I would insist on being profiled. This is not the time for civil rights. There are larger issues for Americans.Collection: Rights
I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace.Collection: Real
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.Collection: Stupid
How would I like to be seen? Very endearing, charming, intelligent, handsome.Collection: Intelligent
I did not want to be coming off the stage at the mercy of what somebody else told me I did.Collection: Want
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.Collection: Style
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.Collection: Lying
I just know that sameness, repetition, and conceptualizing are the acting craft's adversaries, and it seems more intelligent to start off within a framework where those things are, to some degree, taken out of your hands.Collection: Taken
I have never felt brutalized as an actor. Many actors do, some times, but I've never had that experience. If I'm not happy with the balance, I just won't work with that person again.Collection: Balance
He [Castro] is a genius. We spoke about everything.Collection: Genius
Many actors will try something different once, but if it isn't a box office success they'll never do it again. In my opinion, there's no point in going on with this job if you do the same thing over and over again.Collection: Jobs
I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.Collection: Pain
I feel very lucky because I don't think there's any part I can't play. There are parts that scare me more than others.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Religious
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.Collection: Perspective
My only emotion is gratitude, literally, for my life.Collection: Gratitude
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.Collection: Character
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.Collection: Drama
I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.Collection: Men
With comedy, you have to do it right. In a drama, there's a lot of different ways to succeed in a moment. But comedy comes from reality. You can't try to be funny.Collection: Drama
I'm such a perfectionist. I always feel overpraised or whatever. In the abstract, I know I'm a good person, a good professional. But it's nice to be noticed a little bit, ain't it?Collection: Nice
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Useless Life
I'm fairly well off. I can't poor-mouth that away from people's sensibilities about me, which is something I worry about as an actor. But it would be real stupid of me to do something for the money.Collection: Real
I never thought in terms of typing myself, because I wasn't that successful. After an actor has done a few pieces of work, his naïveté is the part of the craft he has to nurture most.Collection: Successful
Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?Collection: Devil
Before I moved into the mainstream of American movies, I wrote a script as an experiment. I wanted to get very far away from the clichés about the three-act play - structure, development.Collection: Play
The less people know about me, the easier my job is.Collection: Jobs
[on the birth of his son after having had two daughters] I finally got it right.Collection: Daughter
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.Collection: Thinking
Children give your life a resonance that it can't have without them.Collection: Children
Never rub another man's rhubarb.Collection: Men
I'm a scamp. I don't deny it. I like myself.Collection: Deny
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.Collection: Successful