A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.
Orson Welles
2
A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.
Orson Welles
3
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
Orson Welles
4
At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable.
Orson Welles
5
Criminals are never very amusing. It's because they're failures. Those who make real money aren't counted as criminals. This is a class distinction, not an ethical problem.
Orson Welles
6
Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.
Orson Welles
7
Everybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one!
Orson Welles
Hollywood is the only industry, even taking in soup companies, which does not have laboratories for the purpose of experimentation.
Orson Welles
11
I don't pray because I don't want to bore God.
Orson Welles
12
I don't say that we ought to all misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.
Orson Welles
13
I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.
Orson Welles
14
I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.
Orson Welles
15
I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai.
Orson Welles
16
I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
Orson Welles
17
I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
Orson Welles
18
I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.
Orson Welles
19
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
Orson Welles
20
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Orson Welles
21
Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.
Orson Welles
22
Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest.
Orson Welles
23
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
24
Personally, I don't like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she'll fool her husband, I figure she'll fool me.
Orson Welles
25
Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in senate.
Orson Welles
26
The best thing commercially, which is the worst artistically, by and large, is the most successful.
Orson Welles
27
The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.
Orson Welles
28
The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism.
Orson Welles
29
They teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.
Orson Welles
