No one consciously wants to destroy themselves. It always comes in a disguise. But then you have to deal with it some way.
— Nick Nolte
I can't ad-lib, or not for long.
I never fought much. It just wasn't my thing. I suppose I could, but I've never got into fights. Not a real one.
Women are just more oriented toward feelings - and I don't mean that in a negative way. But with a male actor and a male director, the emotional exploration can only go so far. With a female director, you can end up exploring so many more depths.
I've been in movies where the movie doesn't come together but the role comes together, or the movie comes together but the role doesn't come together or something like that. Something misses. It's very difficult to make it hit on all cylinders - it's just very rare.
Asking for forgiveness is just one of the most painful kind of experiences.
With 3D, all you're doing is trying to shock the audience; there's no value to the storytelling.
You do come to a point where you can get your life in control a bit.
The way you conquer fear is to feel it all the way, and then you'll find out that there's nothing there - it's just emotion.
World War II affected the male population in a very detrimental way. They were happy to be home, happy to be alive, happy they won, but they could not express to anybody the horror they had been through.
After Civil Rights, it was very awkward for whites and blacks. We didn't know how to talk to each other.
American society is still puritanical.
Electing a black president was probably the only coup America could pull off.
Action films have a certain illogicalness to them. They're what we call, when we're working, 'exaggerated realism.'
It's fun to change your body and find new things that your body does because of the weight.
If I'm going to have to deal, as I get older, with arthritic pain, I don't want to get into opiates.
The greatest movie would be the movie that gave the audience a cathartic feeling of transcendence.
No one wants to spend too long inside their own darkness.
How do I relax? Meditate, I guess. I quit golf. You twist your back and get all cranked up.
When women talk about their feelings, they're not asking for solutions.
Birth is violent, and out of that violence is our only chance of rebirth.
I've been called 'the voice actor.'
Ageing's a difficult thing, moving closer to death, but it's okay. I've had a good time living, so I'm gonna have a good time dying.
Acting is a bit of a substitute for life.
It's failure, really, that you grow by, although nobody likes to experience it.
Success comes to you with luck and a lot of hard work, but it doesn't give you the right to be any better than anybody else.
Acting is always therapeutic.
The thing about '48 Hrs.' that really isn't thought about much is that's the first film where the black and the white criticize each other.
Everyone chases a bit of what they say life is about: money, desire... But when you stop chasing, you realise life is a rhythm and it's very peaceful, very quiet. You see, it's quite a miracle.
The truth was that, you know, there was no reason to send me to Shattuck Military School. But it was a disciplinarian school.
Nobody likes to lose power or reach a point of humility.
If you had a cancer on your skin and had it burned it off, you'd wash it and clean it every day.
You don't learn anything from success. You know, it's comfortable, it's nice, it's warm, but success just leaves you kind of feeling a little bloated.
Actors are really working with bodies, with their minds, and with their emotions. Feelings, basically. That's what movies are about, going from one feeling to another.
I never caught on to being a bully.
I have a high degree of sensitivity, always have. I was very shy as a child. I don't know why that was.
Living in a small town, one of the keys to survival was your imagination.
Obviously I had gone all through high school and into college, and you don't do that not knowing how to read.
Sometimes the writing can be so good that the actor doesn't really have to do anything.
In America, the old are neglected.
The difference between a murderer and myself is only that I choose not to do it. But I'm capable.
You don't want to make awards the reason you're doing things.
I have a lot of scars, man. My mother said that a man is not a man unless he has a scar on his face. And what she meant by a scar was some kind of battle that you had to go through, whether it was psychological or physical. To her, a scar was actually beautiful and not something that marred you.
Americans aren't good at accents, but the English are because their accents change. You go five or six blocks and the accent is different, so they are used to hearing different pitches. In America, you gotta travel maybe 10 states before you can really hear a difference.
I accept the dying process. I would just like to be as healthy as I possibly can at each step and phase along the way.
I'd like to do one European film a year.
I'm glad I never went to war.
I'm pretty much of a physical actor.
I am a good sewer. My mother taught me how to sew.
In the sixties, you're still thinking you could do something about this slow disintegration of the body.
