Orson Welles
Citizen Kane, transformed cinema and radio
Most quoted
"I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my personal life. I've been married three times. I've been a father. I've been a lover. I've been a friend. I've been a lot of things. I've been a lot of things that I'm not now. I've been a lot of things that I'm not now. I've been a lot of things that I'm not now."
"I believe that television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure."
— from Speech: 'The Mercury Theatre on the Air', 1938
"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."
— from Film: The Third Man (as Harry Lime), 1949
All quotes by Orson Welles (351)
The camera is much more than a recording device. It is an instrument of discovery and revelation.
I have always been more interested in the future than in the past.
The essential is to get things done; one is always too few, yet too many.
In the theater, you can scratch an actor's ego or an actress's, but in the movies, you have to be very careful.
Race hate isn't human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.
The director is simply the audience. So the terrible burden of the director is to take the place of that yawning vacuum.
I don't pray because I don't want to bore God.
The old world is dying, but a new world is being born. It generates inspiration from the chaos.
A writer needs a pen instead of a sword.
Movies are a never-ending flow of dreams.
The human imagination... is our greatest national resource.
I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything. But I don't think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money.
Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.
The stage is a world of men, the theater a world of women.
I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has to be out of step with his time.
The biggest mistake is being too afraid of making one.
In my opinion, the most beautiful thing in the world is a good story well told.
You mustn't stay the night, because the beds are all made from nails.
The heart of the wise man lies quiet between the extremes.
I think we will be remembered most by the things we have done for others.
Contemporaries of Orson Welles
Other Film & Theaters born within 50 years of Orson Welles (1915–1985).