Nick Nolte
It's easier to go somewhere if you've been there before.
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.
Violence isn't really my thing.
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.
The greatest movie would be the movie that gave the audience a cathartic feeling of transcendence.
In the sixties, you're still thinking you could do something about this slow disintegration of the body.
You don't learn anything from success. You know, it's comfortable, it's nice, it's warm, but success just leaves you kind of feeling a little bloated.
If I'm going to have to deal, as I get older, with arthritic pain, I don't want to get into opiates.
I am a good sewer. My mother taught me how to sew.
It's fun to change your body and find new things that your body does because of the weight.
I'm pretty much of a physical actor.
Nobody likes to lose power or reach a point of humility.
Action films have a certain illogicalness to them. They're what we call, when we're working, 'exaggerated realism.'
I'm glad I never went to war.
Electing a black president was probably the only coup America could pull off.
I'd like to do one European film a year.
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.
American society is still puritanical.
I accept the dying process. I would just like to be as healthy as I possibly can at each step and phase along the way.
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.
After Civil Rights, it was very awkward for whites and blacks. We didn't know how to talk to each other.
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.
Acting is always therapeutic.
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.
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.
The way you conquer fear is to feel it all the way, and then you'll find out that there's nothing there - it's just emotion.
You don't want to make awards the reason you're doing things.
It's failure, really, that you grow by, although nobody likes to experience it.
You do come to a point where you can get your life in control a bit.
When you start thinking about death more than sex, you know you're getting old.Collection: Sex
Every generation will be challenged morally once in their life about its government, and they will have to say where they stand.Collection: Government
If you do have limitations, then you have to find out what they are. And if you find out what they are and avoid them, then they aren't limiting anymore.Collection: Ifs
To allow the fear to come on you and then pass through. If you keep cutting the fear off by intervening - let's say, taking a Xanax to try to cure it - you'll never understand what fear is really for. Fear is part of a survival mechanism. The way you conquer fear is to feel it all the way, and then you'll find out that there's nothing there - it's just emotion.Collection: Xanax
In another couple of generations, we're really gonna see the effect of this single-parent raising. And I think that's the problem. That's the disconnect. That's the miscommunication.Collection: Couple
I never felt comfortable in real life very well. It's always been an awkward kind of thing for me.Collection: Real
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.Collection: Men
First make peace inside yourself.Collection: Firsts
There's no greater purpose than service to others.Collection: Purpose
We all go through life and say a lot of things that we don't really mean.Collection: Mean
I should really be retired. But then you find out how much you get in retirement. I don't know how you make it. It's really rough!Collection: Retirement
Everything has a purpose, even this, and it's up to you to find it.Collection: Up To You
Class isn't something you buy. Look at you ... you've got on a $500 suit and you're still a low life.Collection: Money
Death isn't sad. The sad thing is: most people don't live at all.Collection: People
A career in acting, it's a learning process.Collection: Careers
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.Collection: Oscars
A warrior is not about perfection or victory or invulnerability. He's about absolute vulnerability.Collection: Warrior
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.Collection: Success
You've got to admit failure sometimes.Collection: Sometimes
One thing we forget about Hispanics is that they're family-unit-oriented as a culture. So it's not all wild Mexican gangs out there, as is rumored.Collection: Mexican