Top 257 Quotes & Sayings by Jack Nicholson - Page 5

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.

I know I can act. There aren't too many other jobs I know how to do

It [TV] is the cancer of film. It's why people can't be educated to film. In the late '60s, we expected to see a movie or two every week and be stimulated, excited and inspired. And we did. Every week after week. Antonioni, Goddard, Truffaut - this endless list of people. And then comes television and home video. I know how to work exactly for the big screen, but it doesn't matter what I think about the art of movie-making versus TV.

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.

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.

I don't believe in God now. I can still work up an envy for someone who has a faith. I can see how that could be a deeply soothing experience.

I take responsibility for my successes as well as my failures. But when I look at my professional mistakes, I'm always left with the feeling that maybe I should have done more.

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.

My only emotion is gratitude, literally, for my life.

Because of the way the business is structured, I have sometimes turned down scripts that I might otherwise have accepted had I known who was directing them.

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.

I look for a director with a script he likes a lot, but I'm probably after the directors more than anything.

I love writing, but I stopped because I felt I was more effective approaching filmmaking from a different vantage point.

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.

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

You have to do every movie one at a time. Trilogy is contrary to this ideology. My nightmare is to wake up and find myself the host of a TV series.

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