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 its essence, it's soul-destroying. It tends to turn people into control freaks. — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
It's very, very corrupting to the spirit, doing comedy. And you have to be almost a saint, like Jack Benny was, like Steve Martin is, to avoid the corrupting of it, because there's very little work where the actual work… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
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… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
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… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
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… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
I'm an enormous fan of 'The West Wing.' It was one of the very few shows I would watch every week. — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
I don't expect anything from reviews. Sometimes I am bemused by them. — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
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… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
Whether something is a success or not has never had much to do with what you do next. — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
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… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
If you lose a parent, it never goes away. As a kid, I dreamed about my father coming back for 15 or 20 years.… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
Nerves provide me with energy... It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that I get worried. — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
Technically, maybe I learned most of all from George Stevens, and among his movies I learned the most from 'A Place in the Sun.'… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
Jewish introspection and Jewish humor is a way of surviving . . . if you're not handsome and you're not athletic and you're not… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
'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… — Mike Nichols Copy Share Image
