114 Quotes by Mike Nichols

There are absolutely almost perfect people who experience no guilt; they don't know what it is. They simply do what they need to do - or want to do - next. They see nothing wrong with it. They feel no guilt. They express no guilt. And it's not even certain what harm they do.

Limitations are inspiring: they lead to thinking, so I don't mind them.

That seems to me the great American danger we're all in, that we'll bargain away the experience of being alive for the appearance of it.

I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That’s the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.

The whole point about laughter is it's like mercury: you can't catch it, you can't catch what motivates it - that's why it's funny.

I think that to make something alive, instead of on a page, is an honorable task. And it turns me on.

In a weird way, when I was looking back, I didn't know I was going to be a director until I was.

I've learned that many of the worst things lead to the best things, that no great thing is achieved without a couple of bad, bad things on the way to them, and that the bad things that happen to you bring, in some cases, the good things.

Nerves provide me with energy... It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that's when I get worried.