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" Limitations are inspiring: they lead to thinking, so I don't mind them. "
Mike Nichols
Limitations
Lead
Mind
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" 'Catch-22' was a nightmare to make, and everybody was unhappy except me. "
Mike Nichols
Unhappy
Everybody
Make
" A movie is like a person. Either you trust it or you don't. "
Mike Nichols
Either
Like
You
" There's nothing in the American dream about character. It's a serious flaw. "
Mike Nichols
American
Character
American Dream
" 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
" Here's the most mysterious thing to me. I look back at those first plays I did and the first movies I did, and I only have one question, which is, 'What was I so confident about? Where did I get that? "
Mike Nichols
Here
Me
Confident
" The reason you do this stuff - comedy, plays, movies - is to be seized by something, to disappear in the service of an idea. "
Mike Nichols
You
Service
Reason
" 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
" 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
" It took me forever, learning improvisation, because I had studied with Lee Strasberg - I dropped out of Chicago and went to his classes in New York for a couple of years, once or twice a week. What I didn't realize was I was learning directing because he wasn't all that good about acting, not for me. "
Mike Nichols
New York
Me
Good
" People, by and large, would rather be talking than listening. "
Mike Nichols
Than
Listening
People
" All the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it. "
Mike Nichols
Behavior
Circumstances
Great
" 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
" The degree to which you're peculiar and different is the degree to which you must learn to hear people thinking. Just in self-defense you have to learn, where is their kindness? Where is their danger? Where is their generosity? "
Mike Nichols
Thinking
Generosity
Kindness
" A play, after all, is a mystery. There's no narration. And as soon as there's no narration, it's open to interpretation. It must be interpreted. You don't have a choice... Each play can become many things. "
Mike Nichols
Choice
Open
Mystery
" 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
" American society to me and my brother was thrilling because, first of all, the food made noise. We were so excited about Rice Krispies and Coca-Cola. We had only silent food in our country, and we loved listening to our lunch and breakfast. "
Mike Nichols
Food
Brother
Me
" I'm an enormous fan of 'The West Wing.' It was one of the very few shows I would watch every week. "
Mike Nichols
Fan
Few
West
" Most great plays of the past lose their grip on immediacy; on application to our lives right now. "
Mike Nichols
Past
Now
Most
" Fear of comedy is all so much about who you do it with. "
Mike Nichols
Fear
Who
Much
" I don't expect anything from reviews. Sometimes I am bemused by them. "
Mike Nichols
I Am
Expect
Sometimes
" 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 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
" If you lose a parent, it never goes away. As a kid, I dreamed about my father coming back for 15 or 20 years. I still do sometimes. "
Mike Nichols
Parent
Father
You
" 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. "
Mike Nichols
Know
Never
Power
" You want to make money, remake 'Cinderella.' You want to move people, remake the Hippolytus and Phaedra myth. "
Mike Nichols
You
Myth
Move
" 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
" 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 her running downstairs to go after it. I have no memory before that. I was 4. My father had a lot of girlfriends and my mother had a lot of boyfriends. "
Mike Nichols
Memory
World
Teacher
" Clay Aiken is amazing beyond that glorious voice. Turns out he is an excellent comic actor and a master of character. "
Mike Nichols
Actor
Amazing
Beyond
" For a director, a musical is a special kind of hell. "
Mike Nichols
Director
Hell
Kind
" Nerves provide me with energy... It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that's when I get worried. "
Mike Nichols
Energy
Nerves
Feel