Quotes By 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.

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

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.

When you are down and out something always turns up - and it is usually the noses of your friends.

They teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.

Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.

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

Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.

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.

Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.

The best thing commercially, which is the worst artistically, by and large, is the most successful.

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.

The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.

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.

The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism.

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.

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