Jack Nicholson Quotes

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.

There's only two people in your life you should lie to... the police and your girlfriend.

People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.

My whole career strategy has been to build a base so that I could take the roles I want to play. I'd hate to think that a shorter part might not be available because I was worried about my billing.

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

Beer, it's the best damn drink in the world.

You know, I think I understand what you're like now. You're very beautiful and you think men are only interested in you because you're beautiful. But you want them to be interested in you because you're you. The problem is, aside from all that beauty, you're not very interesting. You're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn... oh, I know- you want someone to look past all that at the real person underneath. But the only reason anyone would bother to look past all that is because you're beautful. Ironic, isn't it? In an odd way you're your own problem.

With my sunglasses on, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and 60.

The minute that you're not learning I believe you're dead.

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 in the past 12 years and they'll tell you it's a different world and these people are strongly misinformed by the media, peer pressure.

Human beings are always going to find interesting ways of making a mess of their lives. It's human nature.

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

Men dominate because of physicality, and thus they have mercy where women do not.

I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.

I'm very contra my constituency in terms of abortion because I'm positively against it. I don't have the right to any other view. My only emotion is gratitude, literally, for my life.

I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace.

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

I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you and talk to you and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.

It's very easy to go down, so always live up. Incline yourself upward.

Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You!?

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.

When we make mistakes they call it evil. When God makes mistakes they call it Nature!

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.

You can call me Joker. And as you can see, I'm a lot happier.

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.

I usually don't get too bogged down with my personal problems because that's a one-way street if you get yourself into a negative frame of mind and only see the dark side of life.

I love discourse. I'm dying to have my mind changed. I'm probably the only liberal who read Treason, by Ann Coulter. I want to know, you understand? I like listening to everybody. This to me is the elixir of life.

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

In my last year of school, I was voted Class Optimist and Class Pessimist. Looking back, I realize I was only half right.

I've always had an urge to feed my need to have fun and feel free. I don't see any interesting alternatives.

Women -- a mistake, or did He do it to us on purpose?

You can't handle the truth!

Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide.

There's no point dwelling on what might or could have been. You just have to go forward.

The only way to break a bad habit was to replace it with a better habit.

I'm against cronyism, and I had to learn that early on. Like, I don't have an entourage, because I saw the negative effects of those things.

I have never lied to you, I have always told you some version of the truth.

No issue is more compelling than the air we breathe, be it hot or cold, be it hawk or human.

I would never want to vilify somebody who considered abortion murder. I was an illegitimate child myself. I may not have existed today.

I don't know if this is a true statistic, but I heard somewhere that there are three times as many single women over forty as single men. That's what we got from the women's movement. The chickens have come home to roost.

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

[on the birth of his son after having had two daughters] I finally got it right.

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

I think it's good if a man gives a woman some time to herself because I think we all need that and we can all benefit from that. It doesn't imply a rejection of the other person, just a sense that because we do have our separate identities, sometimes you have to be less involved in another person's life or need to have that other person be less involved in your life.

I only take Viagra when I'm with more than one woman.

I always knew there wasn't going to be anybody to help me and emotionally support me, that whatever I did I'd have to do on my own.

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.

I'm content with the fact that I made a decent effort. That's what I've always worried about: that I wouldn't try hard enough.

Once you've been really bad in a movie, there's a certain kind of fearlessness you develop.

You're anachronistic when you know that your feelings aren't going to have any effect on anything.