Jack Nicholson People Quotations

You only lie to two people in your life, your girlfriend and the police.

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

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.

A lot of people can't remember things because they weren't actually there to begin with - they don't take it all in.

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.

I don't want people to know what I'm actually like. It's not good for an actor.

I hate giving advice, because people won't take it.

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

I don't have any plugs or tucks but people do what they want. I look at it as mutilation.

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

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.

I am a person who is trained to look other people in the eye.

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.

It's difficult for people sometimes to recognise when they're happy. People sometimes seem to me to be afraid to be happy.

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.

Freedom in every sense but primarily political sense, a rise in repression that stems from a repression of sexuality. It's AIDS, it's herpes, it's this, it's that. Ask any saloon owner what's happened to social life in America and they'll tell you it's a different world and these people are strongly misinformed by the media, peer pressure.

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.

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

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.

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

There are major influences on us that people are not aware of. There are big lies that nobody's willing to discuss.

It always bothered me when people came off stage and were told how great they were. They weren't, really, in my opinion. It was then I started thinking that, contrary to conventional wisdom, film was the artful medium for the actor, not the stage.

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 envy people of faith. I'm incapable of believing in anything supernatural.

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.

Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier some place else.

I'm certainly not as tough as people think. I'm not a fighter and so forth. I'd just as soon go home.

I'd prefer if people had no impressions of me. As a kid, I had to tell my own family, "Please, just don't talk about me!" Because they always got it wrong. Always. I just didn't want them to tell anyone anything about me.

I love women who have a strong sense of themselves because I know I have a pretty good idea of what I want out of life and I like to be around other people who are also pretty secure. It just makes things easier.

A lot of people manage to find common ground and not let disagreements or tensions build up and destroy them, and other people break up or get divorced. I don't think anything is ever going to change that situation. You simply try to find an accommodation and an understanding with another person and work from there.

People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.

A lot of people in the middle of their lives have a secret yearning for more romance.

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.

Staying together is a challenge. We all have to accept qualities in other people that aren't always exactly what we want or need.