Top 200 Jack Nicholson Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I love the company of people. I always have and always will, it comes with my family. But earlier in life I might have got a little nervous if I was alone for a day or two in a row. I might think, “Where are they?” Now, I just go on doing naturally what I do.”

— Jack Nicholson

102. “If I go into a restaurant there’s a very good chance that I’m going to spend my time being the mayor. If I want to have a good time, I’m happier having dinner here.”

— Jack Nicholson

103. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

104. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

105. “Liberalism is the right to question without being called a heretic. That’s what America did for the world.”

— Jack Nicholson

106. “I learned a long time ago in Hollywood that the only person I should vote for is myself.”

— Jack Nicholson

107. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

108. “I want a big 25-foot pink statue that holds my grave. Or I also might like the way the Indians did it. They hang you up on the top of a tree and the birds eat you. No, really I would probably choose cremating.”

— Jack Nicholson

109. “The less people know about me, the easier my job is.”

— Jack Nicholson

110. “If it is difficult to know yourself as an individual, it seems to be more complex as a couple. So if you say, “Oh I like a person who is like this and that,” you might take away the possibility of seeing the only one that might be right for you.”

— Jack Nicholson

111. “I know I can act. There aren’t too many other jobs I know how to do. Financially, I’ve lost money and made money, but I know my way around financially. I’ve been too many places. I’m like the bad penny.”

— Jack Nicholson

112. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

113. “How would I like to be seen? Very endearing, charming, intelligent, handsome.”

— Jack Nicholson

114. “That’s what I like about the movie business: you’re always in contact with wonderful and interesting people.”

— Jack Nicholson

115. “I’ve spent more time playing golf than anything else the last 18 years. Just wanted to be an 80s-shooter. Got there, too.”

— Jack Nicholson

116. “I have a lot of vanity.”

— Jack Nicholson

117. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

118. “I know I can act. There aren’t too many other jobs I know how to do.”

— Jack Nicholson

119. “I have never felt brutalized as an actor. Many actors do, some times, but I’ve never had that experience. If I’m not happy with the balance, I just won’t work with that person again.”

— Jack Nicholson

120. “Comedy is much harder, it’s a lot more exacting. You can’t just be real and you can’t just use the same kind of techniques you use to fill up a regular scene.”

— Jack Nicholson

121. “I thought of myself as part of the general filmmaking effort. And as my scope broadened, I began to think about directing. I wanted to be the guy who got to say whether the dress is red or blue.”

— Jack Nicholson

122. “There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.”

— Jack Nicholson

123. “As a means of supporting experiential element in film, once I begin to work on a particular movie I consider myself to be the tool of the director.”

— Jack Nicholson

124. “I just like art. I get pure pleasure from it. I have a lot of wonderful paintings, and every time I look at them I see something different.”

— Jack Nicholson

125. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

126. “I’ve always understood money; it’s not a big mystical thing to me.”

— Jack Nicholson

127. “I love working with women directors. They don’t mind making you cute.”

— Jack Nicholson

128. “There’s a tacit agreement today that the white male is the only legitimate target for any and all satire, criticism, and so forth. And we pretty much just accept it.”

— Jack Nicholson

129. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

130. “You can’t say, “I’m gonna make a hit movie.” You’re as dead as you could be.”

— Jack Nicholson

131. “Once I got started acting I loved it.”

— Jack Nicholson

132. “I’m very fortunate in the sense that outside of cohabitating relationships and so forth, I’ve always got on just as well with women.”

— Jack Nicholson

133. “I assume most of the characters I play are exactly like me.”

— Jack Nicholson

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

— Jack Nicholson

135. “Everybody said I was good, but being known and not having a big film success is almost tougher than being completely new. It just kind of turned my life around and was definitely a highlight.”

— Jack Nicholson

136. “When they say I’m a great actor, I close my ears because it’s not good for you to think that way.”

— Jack Nicholson

137. “Most of the early part of an actor’s career, you do the jobs you get.”

— Jack Nicholson

138. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

139. “I did not want to be coming off the stage at the mercy of what somebody else told me I did.”

— Jack Nicholson

140. “I wanted to be the best actor possible. I worked very hard at the craft of it.”

— Jack Nicholson

141. “I’m the last guy in the world to feel overlooked by the Academy.”

— Jack Nicholson

142. “There is love, and everything else is staring into the abyss.”

— Jack Nicholson

143. “I don’t think many people have a very good understanding of leisure and the importance it plays in our lives.”

— Jack Nicholson

144. “Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But remember, as my plastic surgeon always said: if you gotta go, go with a smile.”

— Jack Nicholson

145. “On the birth of his son after having had two daughters: I finally got it right.”

— Jack Nicholson

146. “If I were an Arab-American, I would insist on being profiled. This is not the time for civil rights. There are larger issues for Americans.”

— Jack Nicholson

147. “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.”

— Jack Nicholson

148. “The average celebrity meets, in one year, ten times the amount of people that the average person meets in his entire life.”

— Jack Nicholson

149. “I am a person who is trained to look other people in the eye. But I can’t look into the eyes of everyone who wants to look into mine; I can’t emotionally cope with that kind of volume. Sunglasses are part of my armor.”

— Jack Nicholson

150. “Time keeps no measure when true friends are parted, No record day by day; the sands move not for those who, loyal-hearted, friendship’s firm laws obey.”

— Jack Nicholson