Orson Welles quotes

Orson Welles was an American actor, director, writer, and producer renowned for his innovative work in theater, radio, and film. Famous for directing and starring in the classic film "Citizen Kane," he left a lasting influence on cinematic storytelling. He is remembered as a visionary artist with a bold, creative spirit. Here are 149 of his quotes:

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

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

Orson Welles

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

Orson Welles

If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.

Orson Welles

Race hate isn't human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.

Orson Welles

Gluttony is not a secret vice.

Orson Welles

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

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.

Orson Welles

The ideal American type is perfectly expressed by the Protestant, individualist, anti-conformist, and this is the type that is in the process of disappearing. In reality there are few left.

Orson Welles

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

Orson Welles

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

Orson Welles

I have always been more interested in experiment, than in accomplishment.

Orson Welles

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo daVinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce The cuckoo clock.

Orson Welles

Men created civilization only to impress their girl friends.

Orson Welles

I don't take art as seriously as politics.

Orson Welles

Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.

Orson Welles

Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.

Orson Welles

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.

Orson Welles

It isn't worth it. No money is worth this... [walks out].

Orson Welles

That doesn't make any sense. Sorry. There's no known way of saying an English sentence in which you begin a sentence with "in" and emphasize it. Get me a jury and show me how you can say "In July" and I'll go down on you. That's just idiotic, if you'll forgive me for saying so. It's just stupid... "In July"; I'd love to know how you emphasize "In" in "In July". Impossible! Meaningless!

Orson Welles

Hollywood is Hollywood. There's nothing you can say about it that isn't true, good or bad. And if you get into it, you have no right to be bitter - you're the one who sat down, and joined the game.

Orson Welles

Take myself as a good-will ambassador. I'm great - I'm taking myself as a character - for the intellectuals and the man on the street. I'm great where Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. leaves off. I'm not so good with high society, in either North or South America, because I'm highly unconventional. Perhaps I bewilder people by being at once the esthete, the intellectual and the vulgarian.

Orson Welles