Mike Nichols Quotes

“On October 23, 1963, Barefoot in the Park opened on Broadway. Just before his extremely nervous cast took the stage, Nichols gathered them for a final pep talk. “Everybody relax,” Redford says he told them. “You know your positions, you know your laughs, you know your lines, you know where the comfort zones are. So enjoy yourselves, and remember: Everything depends on tonight.”
― Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life

“A Place in the Sun”
― Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life

“The story of an alienated young man cosseted by privilege, smothered by the comforts that surround him, and determined to listen to himself had come to feel personal in a way he had never imagined.”
― Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life

“At the time, Sills said, “the main thing we experienced was the repression of any kind of deviant behavior under the guise of anti-Communism.” None of them could understand why there weren’t more people, especially artists, fighting it. “A pall of McCarthyism lay over the land,” said Bernie Sahlins, a producer at Playwrights, “and all you heard on TV were mother-in-law jokes.”
― Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life