414 Quotes by Jack Nicholson

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.

Played tennis for years. But you can’t improve at tennis after you’re 50. You get to be in your 40s, and suddenly you’re a doubles player.

When you use a dialect, you worry that the people you’re imitating will think you’re making fun of them.

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

I’m Irish. I think about death all the time.

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.

We learn how to kiss, or to drink, talk to our buddies-all the things that you can’t really teach in social studies or history-we all learn them at the movies.

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 think that’s what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There’s no melodrama; there’s no device, It’s just about a human being.