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

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

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

At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable.
Orson Welles

Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
Orson Welles

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

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

Ecstasy is not really part of the scene we can do on celluloid.
Orson Welles

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

Everybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one!
Orson Welles


Fake is as old as the Eden tree.
Orson Welles

Gluttony is not a secret vice.
Orson Welles

Hollywood is the only industry, even taking in soup companies, which does not have laboratories for the purpose of experimentation.
Orson Welles

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

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

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

I feel I have to protect myself against things. So I'm pretty careful to lose most of them.
Orson Welles

I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.
Orson Welles

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

I have an unfortunate personality.
Orson Welles