Orson Welles quotes

Born
May 6, 1915 Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.

Died
October 10, 1985.

Occupation
Actor, director, writer.

Orson Welles was an American actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film. He is remembered for his innovative work in all three.

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
– Orson Welles

Fake is as old as the Eden tree.
– Orson Welles

I have an unfortunate personality.
– 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

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.
– Orson Welles

Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
– 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’m a provincial. I live very much like a hermit: reading, listening to music, working in the cutting room, writing, commercial work – which doesn’t take up that much time.
– Orson Welles

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.
– Orson Welles

I know people who have a much better recollection of their childhood than I do. They remember very well when they were a year and a half and two years old. I’ve only one or two daguerreotypes that come to mind.
– Orson Welles

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

One shouldn’t ever be conscious of the author as lecturer. When social or moral points are too heavily stressed, I always get uncomfortable.
– Orson Welles

In my real movie-going days, which were the thirties, you didn’t stand in line. You strolled down the street and sallied into the theater at any hour of the day or night.
– Orson Welles

If I don’t like somebody’s looks, I don’t like them.
– Orson Welles

I’ve always found it very sanitary to be broke.
– Orson Welles

The enemy of society is middle class and the enemy of life is middle age.
– 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

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

People are losing the capacity to listen to words or follow ideas.
– Orson Welles

The classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.
– Orson Welles

Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.
– Orson Welles

The only reason for doing a play is to make a statement about it, and by that I don’t mean a conceit of the producer.
– 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

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

Gluttony is not a secret vice.
– Orson Welles

There were centuries when civilization had no theater.
– Orson Welles

Race hate isn’t human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.
– Orson Welles

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

I don’t want to forgive myself. That’s why I hate psychoanalysis I think if you’re guilty of something you should live with it. Get rid of it – how can you get rid of a real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.
– 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

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.
– Orson Welles

I don’t pray because I don’t want to bore God.
– Orson Welles