Orson Welles > Quotes

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

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

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

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

“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

“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

“If you want a happy ending, it just depends on where you close the book!”
― Orson Welles

“There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women...”
― 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 passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.”
― Orson Welles

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for a moment that we’re not alone.”
― Orson Welles

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

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

“Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash - the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.”
― Orson Welles

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

“I'm not basically a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy.”
― Orson Welles

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

“I don't think any word can explain a man's life.”
― Orson Welles, Citizen Kane

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

“Every man who is any kind of artist has a great deal of female in him. I act and give of myself as a man, but I register and receive with the soul of a woman. The only really good artists are feminine. I can't admit the existence of an artist whose dominant personality is masculine.”
― Orson Welles, My Lunches with Orson

“I much prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out.”
― Orson Welles

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

“نأتي للعالم وحدنا، ونموت وحدنا، ونعيش وحدنا. الحب والصداقة هما أقرب شيئين يمكننا إيجادهما لصنع الوهم أننا لسنا وحدنا تماماً.”
― Orson Welles

“I can think of nothing that an audience won't understand. The only problem is to interest them;once they are interested, they understand anything in the world.”
― Orson Welles

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

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