Jack Nicholson Quotes

The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself.

The rule I stand by as an artist is definitely be yourself, and don't make music just for other people: make it for you first.

The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.

When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.

The whole process of music for me is something absolutely honest and really naked and bare, so I never forced myself to write in French.

I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don't want to lose them.'

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.

First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.

I'm really just trying... to write what feels true to me. I don't think about a lofty responsibility. I think I'd be paralyzed by that. Like any of my male colleagues, I'm writing the stories that interest me in a way that feels true to me.

I think every artist should follow their vision, their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for.

If I knew anything about what people wanted and was popular, I'd still be writing for 'Saturday Night Live'. I can only write what I want, and hopefully people will like it.

I will not let my sales figures dictate what I say on the blog, because the blog is what I want to say.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

I write the novels that are possible for me to write, not that ones I think will come across in a certain light.

Stand up for yourself and fight for your right to be the artist that you want to be. There's plenty of pressure from outside; people tell you how to dress and how to sing or what to sing, but I always felt like if I'm going to fail or succeed, I want to do it on my own terms.

If I go into a studio and find my truth of the moment, there are a number of people in the world who can relate to what I'm saying and are going to buy into what I'm doing. Not because it's the new thing of the moment, but because it's genuine emotion. Its how I feel. This is how I articulate the world.

As a director, I design every movie to be true to itself, and damn it if they like it, and damn it if they don't.

I can only say that I myself wrote always as I wished, without a tremendous desire to find the latest thing possible.

I think you write the film that you want to see, and you try and do it honestly, and you can't control people's responses, really.

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else.

As an artist, you need to be true to yourself and free and not put yourself in a box that contradicts with what you feel is needed for a song.

I can only do music if I can do it the way I can do it.