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 WellesI hate women, hate them generally, not in particular but in an abstract way. I hate them because one never really learns anything about them. They are inscrutable.
Orson WellesI feel I have to protect myself against things. So I'm pretty careful to lose most of them.
Orson WellesYou could write all the IDEAS of all the movies, my own included, on the head of a pin.
Orson WellesHusbands should revolt from time to time. Even the best circus-number becomes boring if the beast is too tame.
Orson WellesThere are a thousand ways of playing a good classic. If it were effective, I would play Hamlet on a trapeze.
Orson WellesIf 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 WellesAs a producer, sitting on the other side of the desk, I have never once had an agent go out on a limb for his client and fight for him. I've never heard one say, 'No, just a minute! This is the actor you should use.' They will always say, 'You don't like him? I've got somebody else.' They're totally spineless.
Orson WellesFuture shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It's the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore.
Orson WellesMy mother and father were both much more remarkable than any story of mine can make them. They seem to me just mythically wonderful.
Orson WellesIf everyone worked with wide-angle lenses, I'd shoot all my films in 75mm, because I believe very strongly in the possibilities of the 75mm.
Orson WellesDid you ever stop to think why cops are always famous for being dumb? Simple. Because they don't have to be anything else.
Orson WellesThe ideal American type is perfectly expressed by the Protestant, individualist, anti-conformist, and this is the type that is in the process of disappearing. In reality there are few left.
Orson WellesWhy spend 18 hours watching someone else's war, when you know how it comes out? We win, and then have to buy all their cars.
Orson WellesSee, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I'm profoundly convinced that that's a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks.
Orson WellesI 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 WellesEach multiplex has screens allocated to each studio. The screens need filling. Studios have to create product to fill their screen, and the amount of good product is limited.
Orson WellesLiving in the lap of luxury isn't bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.
Orson WellesI am essentially a hack, a commercial person. If I had a hobby, I would immediately make money on it or abandon it.
Orson WellesSix years ago, I looked at a picture of the world's greatest newspaper men. I felt like a kid in front of a candy store. Well, tonight, six years later, I got my candy - all of it. Welcome, gentlemen, to the Inquirer! Make up an extra copy of that picture and send it to the Chronicle
Orson Welles[The movies] make the sort of comment only a novel can make, an allusion to the world in which people live, the psychological and economic motivations, the influences of the period in which they lived.
Orson WellesI'm not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I'm no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom. I mark only the happy hours, like the sundial, because otherwise I would have gone nuts.
Orson WellesI've never understood the cult of Hitchcock. Particularly the late American movies... Egotism and laziness. And they're all lit like television shows.
Orson WellesThe best thing commercially, which is the worst artistically, by and large, is the most successful.
Orson Welles