Orson Welles 1984 Quotes

Many would never speak with a full mouth, but do it with an empty head ~ Orson Welles

Look at the real prodigies, and I look like nothing compared to them. ~ Orson Welles

It was great to watch Orson Welles, not only as an actor but as a director. ~ Max Von Sydow

I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford. ~ Orson Welles

I love informality. I hate dressing up. I hate to be conventional - and I hate every kind of snob. ~ Orson Welles

If everyone worked with wide-angle lenses, I'd shoot all my films in 75mm, because I believe very strongly in the possibilities of the 75mm. ~ Orson Welles

Everybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one! ~ Orson Welles

See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I'm profoundly convinced that that's a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks. ~ Orson Welles

Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Orson Welles. I am an actor. I am a writer. I am a producer. I am a director. I am a magician. I appear onstage and on the radio. Why are there so many of me and so few of you? ~ Orson Welles

I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts. ~ Orson Welles

Women are another race. They are always changing, like the moon. You can only win by being the cool center of their being. You have to represent something solid and loving. The anchor. Even if you are not. You can't tell them the truth. You have to lie and play games. I've never in my entire life been with someone with whom I didn't have to play a game. I've never been with anyone with whom I could be exactly who I am. ~ Orson Welles

A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows - his own. ~ Orson Welles

Now I'm an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions. ~ Orson Welles

I got that good a contract because I really didn't want to make a film. ~ Orson Welles

Never expect justice in this world. That is not part of God's plan. Everybody thinks that if they don't get it, they're some kind of odd man out. And it's not true. Nobody gets justice - people just get good luck or bad luck. ~ Orson Welles

I hate women, hate them generally, not in particular but in an abstract way. I hate them because one never really learns anything about them. They are inscrutable. ~ Orson Welles

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. ~ Orson Welles

I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could. ~ Orson Welles

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him. ~ Orson Welles

I have made an art form of the interview. The French are the best interviewers, despite their addiction to the triad, like all Cartesians. ~ Orson Welles

Gluttony is not a secret vice. ~ Orson Welles

I'm not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I'm no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom. ~ Orson Welles

You know what I did this morning? I played the voice of a toy. Some terrible robot toys from Japan that changed from one thing to another. The Japanese have funded a full-length animated cartoon about the doings of these toys, which is all bad outer-space stuff. I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed. My plan to destroy Whoever-it-is is thwarted and I tear myself apart on the screen. ~ Orson Welles

We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone. ~ Orson Welles

When television came along, I'd already done more than 10 years of radio work and I thought everyone would want me. I sat around waiting for the phone to ring - and it didn't. ~ Orson Welles

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. ~ Orson Welles

I mean, everyone says Citizen Kane. It isn't that great, anyway. And Orson Welles I knew well, of course. He made other incredible films that no one would let him make, which were much better than Citizen Kane, really. ~ Patrick Macnee

I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God. ~ Orson Welles

Ecstasy is not really part of the scene we can do on celluloid. ~ Orson Welles

I knew all about the importance of dressmakers, because I'd spent my childhood with a woman permanently torn between the necessity of possessing beautiful clothes and the difficulty of paying for them. ~ Orson Welles

Everything bad that has ever happened to me has been caused by agents or lawyers. ~ Orson Welles

Only a certain breed of actor should ever even try to work for Orson Welles. I'm glad I'm one of that breed. ~ Mercedes McCambridge

My toils in the quotation field have led me to formulate two or three laws about the way people use and abuse quotations. My first law is: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to Bernard Shaw - which I don't mean to be taken literally, but as a general observation of the habit people have of attaching remarks to the nearest obvious speaker. Churchill, Wilde, Orson Welles and Alexander Woollcott are other useful figures upon whom to father remarks when you don't know who really said them. ~ Nigel Rees

I have no great message to the world. ~ Orson Welles

In the theater there are 1,500 cameras rolling at the same time - in the cinema, only one. ~ Orson Welles

Living in the lap of luxury isn't bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up. ~ Orson Welles

The first thing one must remember about film is that it is a young medium. And it is essential for every responsible artist to cultivate the ground that has been left fallow. ~ Orson Welles

Orson Welles lists Citizen Kane as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for Shadow of a Doubt, and Sir Carol Reed chose The Third Man - and I'm in all of them. ~ Joseph Cotten

I never make my mind up about anything at all, until it's over and done with. ~ Orson Welles

When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society. ~ Orson Welles

I've always tried to learn from the greats: Orson Welles, Humphrey Bogart, Ghandi, Buddha, Jesus ... it's just that there's this tremendous pressure to correct all the things they got wrong. ~ Zach Braff

Why spend 18 hours watching someone else's war, when you know how it comes out? We win, and then have to buy all their cars. ~ Orson Welles