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" Everybody wants to be known. Everybody's a Kardashian. "
Mike Nichols
Wants
Known
Everybody
Related Quotes:
" There are absolutely almost perfect people who experience no guilt; they don't know what it is. They simply do what they need to do - or want to do - next. They see nothing wrong with it. They feel no guilt. They express no guilt. And it's not even certain what harm they do. "
Mike Nichols
Know
Perfect
Guilt
" There's nothing in the American dream about character. It's a serious flaw. "
Mike Nichols
American
Character
American Dream
" That seems to me the great American danger we're all in, that we'll bargain away the experience of being alive for the appearance of it. "
Mike Nichols
American
Experience
Great
" I came to love silence, because it's so rare, and it's now my favorite aural condition. "
Mike Nichols
Because
Silence
Rare
" The things that you saw earlier in your life generally have more power than the things you saw last week. "
Mike Nichols
Week
You
Power
" Technically, maybe I learned most of all from George Stevens, and among his movies I learned the most from 'A Place in the Sun.' It's a lesson in moviemaking. "
Mike Nichols
Movies
Place
Most
" I keep coming back to it, over and over - adultery and cheating. It's the most interesting problem in the theater. How else do you get Oedipus? That's the first cheating in the theater. "
Mike Nichols
Interesting
You
Cheating
" I think that to make something alive, instead of on a page, is an honorable task. And it turns me on. "
Mike Nichols
Alive
Page
Task
" Fear of comedy is all so much about who you do it with. "
Mike Nichols
Fear
Who
Much
" 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
Love
Job
Safe
" The producers want us to sell, sell, sell. That's my little joke. That's what we do by day; by night, we're artists. "
Mike Nichols
Us
Day
Want
" 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 and the reward are simultaneous, and comedy is that. "
Mike Nichols
Doing
Reward
Work
" Improvisation has to do with exploring something like two brothers in a room together. You find out things about situations by discovering the things that they aren't saying. It's a way to explore scenes. Sometimes it's more useful than others, but it's always there to see if there's anything that you might improve. "
Mike Nichols
Together
Find
Saying
" Chicago is not a very fashion-driven place. Nobody says, 'Oh, you've got to come see these fabulous people!' Nobody cares. "
Mike Nichols
You
Nobody
People
" You can always tell gifted and highly intelligent people as they always turn to the past. Any young person who knows anything that happened before 1980, or 1990, or 2000 for that matter, is immediately someone who is intelligent, probably creative, maybe a writer. Nobody who is drawn to the past and learning about the past is not gifted. "
Mike Nichols
People
Creative
Learning
" 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
Stay
Best
Road
" I don't expect anything from reviews. Sometimes I am bemused by them. "
Mike Nichols
I Am
Expect
Sometimes
" Plays, especially great plays, yield their secrets over a long period of time. You can't read it three times and say, 'OK, I got it. I know what's happening.' "
Mike Nichols
Know
Great
You
" 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. "
Mike Nichols
Character
Changes
Change
" 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. "
Mike Nichols
Damn
You
Thinking
" 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
Control
Comedy
Turn
" I think the main thing about comedy and humor is that it's impossible and always was impossible to define. "
Mike Nichols
Comedy
Think
Impossible
" As a director, my job is, and always has been, divided into a number of things: dealing with the crew, the money and the studio, and the marketing and publicity. These are all different jobs that have to be learned and done as well as possible. The celebrity part rarely touches a director. "
Mike Nichols
Celebrity
Money
Job
" I believed early and still believe that everybody who can act can do it already, just they don't know how and don't want to talk about it. "
Mike Nichols
Talk
Want
Early
" I'm anything but confident. "
Mike Nichols
Confident
Anything
" Things come in waves, and I'm always more interested in places like, for instance, Chicago, where people don't follow fashion. They're not galloping past your window on the way to the latest anything. They're living their lives. You do a play, they come and see it and say, 'That's nice', and then they go home. "
Mike Nichols
Fashion
People
Home
" Never let people see what you want, because they will not let you have it. Never let anybody see what you feel, because it gives them too much power. You're probably better off not showing weakness whenever you can avoid it, because they'll go for you. "
Mike Nichols
Power
Better
People
" The greatest thrill is that moment when a thousand people are sitting in the dark, looking at the same scene, and they are all apprehending something that has not been spoken. That's the thrill of it, the miracle - that's what holds us to movies forever. It's what we wish we could do in real life. "
Mike Nichols
Looking
People
Moment
" Very often when a story really holds us, it gets pushed away because it's too close for comfort. "
Mike Nichols
Comfort
Us
Story
" I was standing right behind Marilyn, completely invisible, when she sang 'Happy birthday, Mr. President.' And indeed, the corny thing happened: Her dress split for my benefit, and there was Marilyn, and yes, indeed, she didn't wear any underwear. "
Mike Nichols
Birthday
Dress
Happy