Quotes by Jack Nicholson

• Well, a younger woman is a type, but not necessarily a type for me. And what is a younger woman? I mean, I'm pretty old. Almost everyone is younger.
• With my sunglasses on, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and 60.
• When I was in high school, I earned the pimple award and every other gross-out award.
• When I am cast in a movie where I feel that the woman's part is more interesting, I usually start thinking about Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire. They seem to be the most clear actors when working with women.
• There's only two people in your life you should lie to... the police and your girlfriend.
• We are going as fast as we can as soon as we can. We're in a race against time, until we run out of money.
• Well, a girlfriend once told me never to fight with anybody you don't love.
• Well, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I haven't been a rogue most of my life.
• What's beautiful is all that counts, pal. That's ALL that counts.
• A star on a movie set is like a time bomb. That bomb has got to be defused so people can approach it without fear.
• Frankly, I got into the movies because I like the movies a lot.
• I learned a long time ago in Hollywood that the only person I should vote for is myself.
• I know I can act. There aren't too many other jobs I know how to do.
• I have a lot of vanity.
• I don't want people to know what I'm actually like. It's not good for an actor.
• I don't have any plugs or tucks but people do what they want. I look at it as mutilation.
• I don't have any fear of intimacy, but rather thrive on it, which is rare in a public person.
• Financially, I've lost money and made money, but I know my way around financially.
• Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide.
• Beer, it's the best damn drink in the world.
• Because you know, down deep in my heart, when all is said and done, I still live under the illusion that basically people think of me as an up-and-coming young actor.
• Age is the first limitation on roles that I've ever had to encounter, and I hit that awhile ago.
• Most of the early part of an actor's career, you do the jobs you get.
• I never had a policy about marriage. I got married very young in life and I always think in all relationships, I've always thought that it's counterproductive to have a theory on that.
• Acting is everybody's favorite second job.
• My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
• I only take Viagra when I'm with more than one woman.
• It's a slight stretch of the imagination but most people are alike in most ways so I've never had any trouble identifying with the character that I'm playing.
• There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.
• The minute that you're not learning I believe you're dead.
• The blues and jazz will live forever... So will the Delta and the Big Easy.
• People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.
• Just let the wardrobe do the acting.
• In this industry, there are only two ways up the ladder. Rung by rung or claw your way to the top. It's sure been tough on my nails.
• In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.
• In my last year of school, I was voted Class Optimist and Class Pessimist. Looking back, I realize I was only half right.
• I'm an actor who they said was wrinkled and balding and everything else when I was in my early 30's. Most of the people who wrote that who thought they were younger than me are now bald and wrinkled.
• 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.
• Once you've been really bad in a movie, there's a certain kind of fearlessness you develop.
• I've never been able to say I've been influenced by a list of artists I like because I like thousands and thousands and I've been influenced in some way by all of them.
• I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.
• I'm a New Wave baby, so I got very stimulated by foreign film.
• I used to think that one of the great signs of security was the ability to just walk away.
• I'm Irish. I think about death all the time.
• I'm not hard to get along with.
• I'm the last guy in the world to feel overlooked by the Academy.
• I've been too many places. I'm like the bad penny.
• I'll tell you one thing: Don't ever give anybody your best advice, because they're not going to follow it.
• Life is easier with a sense of humor, but impossible without one.