The classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.
ORSON WELLESThe classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.
ORSON WELLESHollywood is Hollywood. There’s nothing you can say about it that isn’t true, good or bad. And if you get into it, you have no right to be bitter — you’re the one who sat down, and joined the game.
ORSON WELLESI don’t say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.
ORSON WELLESEvery true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan.
ORSON WELLESI passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
ORSON WELLESI’m never certain of a performance – my own or the other actors’ – or the script or anything. But to me it seems there’s only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.
ORSON WELLESIgnorance sheer ignorance. There is no confidence to equal it. It’s only when you know something about a profession that you are timid or careful.
ORSON WELLESWe’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.
ORSON WELLESThe 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.
ORSON WELLESThey teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.
ORSON WELLESThere are three intolerable things in life – cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women.
ORSON WELLESWorking is part of life, I don’t know how to distinguish between the two. Work is an expression of life.
ORSON WELLESI have always been more interested in experiment, than in accomplishment.
ORSON WELLESI have an unfortunate personality.
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 WELLESI 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.
ORSON WELLES