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

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

I started at the top and worked my way down.
Orson Welles

I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
Orson Welles

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

I've always found it very sanitary to be broke.
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

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

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Orson Welles

Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.
Orson Welles

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

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

Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest.
Orson Welles

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

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.
Orson Welles

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

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

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

Race hate isn't human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.
Orson Welles

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