Mike Nichols Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“If you want to be a legend, God help you, it's so easy. You just do one thing. You can be the master of suspense, say. But if you want to be as invisible as is practical, then it's fun to do a lot of different things.”

“My father wasn't too crazy about me. I loved him anyway. One of the things I regretted for a long time was that he died before he could see that he would be proud of me. I was actually more what he wished for than he thought.”

“The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.”

“We are being entertained all the time - in the bathroom, on the train, in our beds. Sure, there is a smaller audience for theater. But we know from radio that entertainment never goes away, it just changes. And more power to it.”

“I am drawn to the mystery of marriage. You can never know what the contract is between two people, and that is a very strong subject. I think it may be my subject.”

“I had a high school girlfriend whose mother gave us theater tickets, so I saw the second night performance of 'A Streetcar Named Desire.' My girl and I could not get up during intermission, we were so stunned. To this day it's the only thing I've seen on stage that's 100 percent real and 100 percent poetic simultaneously.”

“A great thing is happening on cable TV. You see characters change in stories over years, like in Tolstoy. That's a whole, thrilling new form that I really enjoy. They are Tolstoy-an in their endless character development and narrative changes... a show like 'Breaking Bad' is astonishing.”

“Most great plays of the past lose their grip on immediacy; on application to our lives right now.”

“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.”

“The thing about being an outsider... is that it teaches you to hear what people are thinking because you're constantly looking for the people who just don't give a damn.”