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Home
Authors
Orson Welles
American
Actor
About the author
They teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Today
I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Time
#Artist
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Want
#Ending
Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#People
#Justice
#Luck
I started at the top and worked my way down.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
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,
American
Actor
#Time
#Being
#Idea
#Hate
#Artist
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,
American
Actor
#Feeling
#Truth
#Theatre
I have an unfortunate personality.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Personality
I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Eating
#Television
#Hate
Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in senate.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Senate
#Politicians
#Popularity
Race hate isn't human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Nature
#Human nature
#Race
#Hate
The best thing commercially, which is the worst artistically, by and large, is the most successful.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Successful
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Art
#Enemy
#Absence
#Limitations
The enemy of society is middle class and the enemy of life is middle age.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Life
#Enemy
#Society
#Age
#Class
#Middle age
#Middle class
The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Laws
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,
American
Actor
#Love
#Illusion
#Friendship
When you are down and out something always turns up - and it is usually the noses of your friends.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Friends
#Noses
Personally, I don't like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she'll fool her husband, I figure she'll fool me.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Fool
#HusbGirlfriend
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Reason
#Man
#Act
#Temper
The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Flying
Everybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one!
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Genius
A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Wrong
#Artist
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Country
At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Style
Criminals are never very amusing. It's because they're failures. Those who make real money aren't counted as criminals. This is a class distinction, not an ethical problem.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Money
#Class
Did you ever stop to think why cops are always famous for being dumb? Simple. Because they don't have to be anything else.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Being
#Dumb
#Famous
Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Heart
#Actor
A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Film
#Eye
Fake is as old as the Eden tree.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Old
Gluttony is not a secret vice.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Vice
#Gluttony
Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
Ecstasy is not really part of the scene we can do on celluloid.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Ecstasy
Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
Hollywood is the only industry, even taking in soup companies, which does not have laboratories for the purpose of experimentation.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Hollywood
#Purpose
Now I'm an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Now
#Old
#Christmas
Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Now
#Shakespeare
#Order
#Quotations
Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Want
#People
#Dumb
#Politics
I feel I have to protect myself against things. So I'm pretty careful to lose most of them.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Pretty
I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
I don't pray because I don't want to bore God.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Want
#God
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.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Work
#Money
#Posterity
My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#People
I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
#Love
#People
#Respect
#Religion
#Hate
#Atheism
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,
American
Actor
#Eating
#Civilization
#Women
#Order
#Girlfriends
I've always found it very sanitary to be broke.
Orson Welles,
American
Actor
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,
American
Actor
#Want
#Act
#Theater