Orson Welles > Quotes

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.”
― Orson Welles

“You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci 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

“I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God.”
― Orson Welles

“The absence of limitations is the enemy of art.”
― 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

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

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn”
― Orson Welles

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

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

“A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows - his own.”
― Orson Welles, Citizen Kane

“You're beautful. Yes you are, you're very very beautiful. Extremely beautiful.”
― 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

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

“A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.”
― Orson Welles

“Viele Menschen sind gut erzogen, um nicht mit vollem Mund zu sprechen, aber sie haben keine Bedenken, es mit leerem Kopf zu tun.”
― Orson Welles

“Old age is the only disease you dont want to be cured of.”
― Orson Welles

“In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.”
― Orson Welles

“I dont believe in learning from other peoples pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.”
― Orson Welles

“There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women...”
― Orson Welles

“What's happening now is what happened before, and often what's going to happen again sometime or other”
― Orson Welles, Mr. Arkadin

“If you want a happy ending, it depends on where you stop the story" - Orson Welles”
― Orson Welles

“A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.”
― Orson Welles

“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

“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed--they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce ...? The cuckoo clock.”
― Orson Welles

“There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women.”
― Orson Welles