Jack Nicholson

I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.

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.

Almost everybody's happy to be a fool for love.

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

I was particularly proud of my performance as the Joker. I considered it a piece of pop art.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

We learn how to kiss, or to drink, talk to our buddies-all the things that you can't really teach in social studies or history-we all learn them at the movies.

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

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 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.

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.