In a weird way, when I was looking back, I didn't know I was going to be a director until I was. Mike Nichols More Quotes by Mike Nichols More Quotes From Mike Nichols There’s nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you’re meant to do. It’s like falling in love. Mike Nichols astonishment falling-in-love fall I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That’s the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein. Mike Nichols veins keys jobs There's nothing in the American dream about character. It's a serious flaw. Mike Nichols serious dream character No doubt you are as alarmed as I by the tragic decline in America's language skills. If 10 people read the following sentence: Two tanker trucks has just overturned in Alaska, spilling a totel of 10,000 gallons of beer onto a highway. two would find an error in subject-verb agreement, two would find an error in spelling, and six would find a sponge and drive north. Mike Nichols skills agreement beer A movie is like a person. Either you trust it or you don't. Mike Nichols persons Directing is mystifying. It's a long, long, skid on an icy road, and you do the best you can trying to stay on the road... If you're still here when you come out of the spin, it's a relief. But you've got to have the terror if you're going to do anything worthwhile. Mike Nichols relief trying long The only safe thing is to take a chance. Play safe and you are dead. Taking risks is the essence of good work, and the difference between safe and bold can only be defined by yourself since no one else knows for what you are hoping when you embark on anything. Mike Nichols differences essence play Being with an insanely jealous person is like being in the room with a dead mammoth. Mike Nichols jealous jealousy rooms I was just trying to make a nice little movie... It wasn't until I saw it all put together that I realized this was something remarkable. Mike Nichols nice together trying I love the editing process of making movies. I just wish that life had one. Mike Nichols process editing wish I have never understood people dividing things into dramas and comedies. Mike Nichols comedy drama people That seems to me the greatest American danger we're all in, that we'll bargain away the experience of being alive for the appearance of it. Mike Nichols alive appearance danger I came to love silence, because it's so rare, and it's now my favorite aural condition. Mike Nichols conditions my-favorite silence The only safe thing in filmmaking is to take a chance. Mike Nichols take-a-chance chance safe Any good movie is filled with secrets. Mike Nichols filled good-movie secret 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 like themselves - I don't want to see them! Mike Nichols earth mean people The unconscious is our best collaborator. Mike Nichols collaborators unconscious consciousness Take off all your clothes and walk down the street waving a machete and firing an Uzi, and terrified citizens will phone the police and report, There's a naked person outside! Mike Nichols clothes phones civilization Will we allow the decline of our language-the language of Shakespeare, Shaw and Steinbeck? Will we abuse our precious gift of communication? Will we bite our mother tongue with the teeth of indifference, crushing the taste buds of clarity and, without prompt application of the antiseptic of education, causing the gangrene of strained metaphors? Stand up, America, and let me hear your answer: Ain't no way, dude! Mike Nichols crush communication mother In making movies, time is so short-because it is so expensive-that we tend to neglect the place from which the best ideas come, namely that part of ourselves that dreams. The unconscious is our best collaborator. Mike Nichols dream writing ideas
