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Orson Welles Quotes

29 quotations by Orson Welles

QuoteThey teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.Quote

QuoteThe laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism.Quote

QuoteThe essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.Quote

QuoteThe best thing commercially, which is the worst artistically, by and large, is the most successful.Quote

QuotePopularity 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.Quote

QuotePersonally, I don't like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she'll fool her husband, I figure she'll fool me.Quote

QuoteNow 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.Quote

QuoteNobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest.Quote

QuoteNobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.Quote

QuoteMan is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.Quote

QuoteIf you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.Quote

QuoteI 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.Quote

QuoteI think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.Quote

QuoteI passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.Quote

QuoteI 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.Quote

QuoteI hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.Quote

QuoteI don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.Quote

QuoteI don't say that we ought to all misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.Quote

QuoteI don't pray because I don't want to bore God.Quote

QuoteHollywood is the only industry, even taking in soup companies, which does not have laboratories for the purpose of experimentation.Quote

QuoteGluttony is not a secret vice.Quote

QuoteFake is as old as the Eden tree.Quote

QuoteEverybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one!Quote

QuoteEvery actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.Quote

QuoteCriminals 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.Quote

QuoteAt twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable.Quote

QuoteAsk not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.Quote

QuoteA good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.Quote

QuoteA film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.Quote