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Film Quotes by Mike Nichols

13 Film quotes by Mike Nichols

All Film quotes Mike Nichols’s page

Mike Nichols' take on cinema feels like a quick coffee chat with a seasoned storyteller. Though only thirteen lines, each one carries his signature wit and keen eye for what makes a movie click. If you’re curious about his view on the moving‑image world, this short list is a handy primer.

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A movie is like a person. Either you trust it or you don't.

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Technically, maybe I learned most of all from George Stevens, and among his movies I learned the most from 'A Place in…

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In making movies, time is so short-because it is so expensive-that we tend to neglect the place from which the best ideas…

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The reason you do this stuff - comedy, plays, movies - is to be seized by something, to disappear in the service…

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I was just trying to make a nice little movie... It wasn't until I saw it all put together that I realized…

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The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you…

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I don't know that a political climate - as long as it's still a free country - makes much difference in the…

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It's very weird about movies: you never know which ones are going to stay alive and which one are going to be…

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I loved all movies, literally. I certainly loved 'Shane' and 'Roxie Hart.' Later on, when I was less of a kid, I…

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Directing is mystifying. It's a long, long, skid on an icy road, and you do the best you can trying to stay…

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As a director, my job is, and always has been, divided into a number of things: dealing with the crew, the money…

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All movies are pure process. A commercial movie isn't less process than an art movie. You can't make your decisions about a…

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The greatest thrill is that moment when a thousand people are sitting in the dark, looking at the same scene, and they…

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More by Mike Nichols

Stand-up comedy is a very hard thing on the spirit. There are people who transcend it, like Jack Benny and Steve Martin, but in…

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It's the hardest thing on earth to like yourself, and then when you do, it's a catastrophe. I mean, the people I know who…

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I used to say that winning the Oscar means being back at the Beverly Hills Hotel at 1 A.M. feeling empty. It's the industry…

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I'm an enormous fan of 'The West Wing.' It was one of the very few shows I would watch every week.

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The only safe thing in filmmaking is to take a chance.

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I don't expect anything from reviews. Sometimes I am bemused by them.

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My first memory in the world is my gym teacher ripping my mother's necklace off her neck and throwing it out the window and…

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Whether something is a success or not has never had much to do with what you do next.

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The reason that most British actors are better than most American actors in the end is that they don't make any money. At the…

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Fear of comedy is all so much about who you do it with.

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If you lose a parent, it never goes away. As a kid, I dreamed about my father coming back for 15 or 20 years.…

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Nerves provide me with energy... It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that I get worried.

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Technically, maybe I learned most of all from George Stevens, and among his movies I learned the most from 'A Place in the Sun.'…

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Jewish introspection and Jewish humor is a way of surviving . . . if you're not handsome and you're not athletic and you're not…

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'Streetcar' is no longer about the moment at all. There is no Blanche DuBois anywhere; south, north, east or west. We don't have Blanche…

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