Nicholson As Good As It Gets Quotes

I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.

Receptionist: How do you write women so well? Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City "Sailor wanna hump-hump" bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.

I decided to begin with romantic films specifically mentioned by Rosie. There were four: Casablanca, The Bridges of Madison County, When Harry Met Sally, and An Affair to Remember. I added To Kill a Mockingbird and The Big Country for Gregory Peck, whom Rosie had cited as the sexiest man ever. It took a full week to watch all six, including time for pausing the DVD player and taking notes. The films were incredibly useful but also highly challenging. The emotional dynamics were so complex! I persevered, drawing on movies recommended by Claudia about male-female relationships with both happy and unhappy outcomes. I watched Hitch, Gone with the Wind, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Annie Hall, Notting Hill, Love Actually, and Fatal Attraction. Claudia also suggested I watch As Good as It Gets, “just for fun.” Although her advice was to use it as an example of what not to do, I was impressed that the Jack Nicholson character handled a jacket problem with more finesse than I had. It was also encouraging that, despite serious social incompetence, a significant difference in age between him and the Helen Hunt character, probable multiple psychiatric disorders, and a level of intolerance far more severe than mine, he succeeded in winning the love of the woman in the end. An excellent choice by Claudia.

Zane continued to look at her. Even better, he kept her hand in his, his thumb rubbing up and down the length of her fingers. Over and over. Up and down. It was very rhythmic. And sexual. Her thighs took on a life of their own, getting all hot and shaking slightly. Her mouth went dry, her breasts were jealous of the attention her hand was getting and her hormones were singing the “Hallelujah Chorus.” Obviously she needed intensive therapy…or maybe just sex. Zane’s eyes darkened. The muscles in his face tightened, and he stared at her with a hawkish expression. Had he been anyone else, she would have sworn that he’d just had a physical awakening of his own. Awareness crackled around them, like self-generated lightning. The tightness in her chest eased just enough for her to suck in a breath, which was really good, because the next second it all came rushing out again when he kissed her. Just like that. With no warning, Zane Nicholson bent his head and claimed her mouth. It wasn’t a movie-perfect kiss. They didn’t magically melt into each other. Instead their noses bumped, and somehow the hand still holding hers got trapped between them. But all that was fairly insignificant when compared with the intense, sensual heat generated by the pressure of his lips on hers. That part was exactly right. Not too hard, not too soft. When he moved against her, need shot through her body. Had she been breathing again, she would have whimpered. Had he tried to pull away, she would have fallen at his feet and begged him not to stop. Somehow he released her hand and pulled his free. He wrapped his arms around her and hauled her against him so her entire body pressed against his. The man was a rock. Big, unyielding and warmed by the sun. She wanted to snuggle even closer. She wanted to rip off her clothes and give the goats something to talk about. She wanted-- He licked her lower lip. The unexpected moist heat made her gasp as fire raced through her. Every singed nerve ending vibrated with need for more. The masculine, slightly piney scent of him surrounded her. Operating only on instinct, she parted her lips to allow him entry. She had a single heartbeat to brace herself for the power of his tongue touching hers. Then he swept inside and blew her away.

Having a character change during the course of the screenplay is not a requirement if it doesn't fit your character. But transformation, change, seems to be an essential aspect of our humanity, especially at this time in our culture. I think we're all a little like Melvin (Jack Nicholson) in As Good as it Gets. Melvin may be complex and fastidious as a person, but his dramatic need is expressed toward the end of the film when he says, 'When I'm with you I want to be a better person.' I think we all want that. Change, transformation, is a constant of life, and if you can impel some kind of emotional change within your character, it creates an arc of behavior and adds another dimension to who he/she is.

therapy wasn’t about truth; as Jack Nicholson famously shouted in A Few Good Men, sometimes people “can’t handle the truth.” Rather, it’s a matter of getting your unconscious to stop controlling your conscious mind. Effective therapy is about lowering your defences so that you can deal with the issues that arise in your life.

Hmm. You know, nobody gives me the time, either. I have to make the time, set priorities, discipline myself to get my writing done each day, no matter how tired I am. I worked a full-time regular job while I wrote my first novels, scraping out an hour here or there in evenings and weekends. That’s how I’ve become a successful author.

If you can avoid the grammatical bog of trying to wow English professors with your sentences, then you’re well on your way to getting the reader to turn one page and then the next.

I don’t need the drama right now.” “Our goats are trying to eat our asses, this Horseback Preacher thing is back from the grave, and the people of Solom say everybody he kills comes back sooner or later. That means good old Gordy may shamble back from the grave and try to finish the job. I don’t think a little extra drama would even get noticed at this point.” As

Hmm. You know, nobody gives me the time, either. I have to make the time, set priorities, discipline myself to get my writing done each day, no matter how tired I am.

Dustin Hoffman once said to me, “Alec, we’re all in line; some of us are just in a shorter line.” It was a very wise statement, because that competition between performers to get scripts and parts is very real and very aggressive, even to people at his level. The biggest stars in the world, when I came into this business there was Nicholson, De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, and Michael Douglas—a lot of great movie stars, and they were all jockeying to get material. That’s something that never changes. The preciousness of good writing, it’s very tough to come by.

Misty again today. A freakish mist lies over the land. My clothes are out on the clothesline, and they have been there for two days and they've started to get that wet-too-long smell. Now, if I were a nineteenth-century poet, I would say that the freakish mist lay 'o'er' the land. And that's one of those words, 'o'er,' that makes a modern reader feel ill. So what I do, to make the old poems feel true again - the good old poems - is very simple. This is another little tip for you, so get ready. I just pronounce 'o'er' as 'over,' but I do it very fast, so you're gliding o'er the V, not really adding another syllable. Because that's what it was, I think: it was a crude, printed representation of a subtle spoken elision that might well have had some of the vocal ghost of the V left in it. There are rare times when it's absolutely necessary to say 'o'er' without any V - as when, say, Macaulay rhymes it with 'yore.' But a lot of the time you can fudge it. This trick will also work for ''tis' and 'ne'er' - the other painful bits of poetic diction. When I'm reading a poem to myself, I just mentally change all the instances of ''tis' to 'it's.' And I give 'ne'er' the 'o'er' treatment - I just barely graze my teeth with my lower lip, while thinking V. It's like waving the vermouth bottle over the glass of gin. Try it, it may work for you. After all, we don't want some mere convention of spelling to block our connection with the oldies. We want to hear them now as if they're being said now. And that tailcoated diction can really get in the way. It's bad. Not to mention the exclamation points everywhere. Lo! Great God! Just ignore them. If you say the poem aloud, they disappear.