I have always been more interested in experiment, than in accomplishment.
ORSON WELLESAn artist is always out of step with the time. He has to be.
More Orson Welles Quotes
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I’m one of those fellows so frightened of driving that I go 80 miles an hour – and the more frightened I get, the faster I go.
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Living in the lap of luxury isn’t bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.
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I have an unfortunate personality.
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I don’t say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.
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The director is simply the audience. His job is to preside over accidents.
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I dont believe in learning from other peoples pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.
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Everything about me is a contradiction, and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There’s a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don’t reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.
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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.
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I’ve never understood the cult of Hitchcock. Particularly the late American movies. Egotism and laziness. And they’re all lit like television shows.
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If I ever own a restaurant, I will never allow the waiters to ask if the diners like their dishes. Particularly when they’re talking.
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Personally, I don’t like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she’ll fool her husband, I figure she’ll fool me.
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Paris is the playwright’s delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor’s city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head.
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I love informality. I hate dressing up. I hate to be conventional – and I hate every kind of snob.
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There are three intolerable things in life – cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women.
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I look back on my life and it’s 95% running around trying to raise money to make movies and 5% actually making them. It’s no way to live.
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The most personal thing I’ve put in [Touch of Evil] is my hatred of the abuse of police power. It’s better to see a murderer go free than for a policeman to abuse his power.
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The classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.
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A good artist should be isolated. If he isn’t isolated, something is wrong.
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A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die.
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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.
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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.
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Crooks aren’t the worst people, just the stupidest. The fleas of the world.
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A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.
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In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.
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I prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out.
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People are losing the capacity to listen to words or follow ideas.
ORSON WELLES