Orson Welles Quotes


In addition to receiving the gift of a golden-toned speaking voice, Welles was very articulate in a way that is largely a trait of a bygone era. He also possesses razor wit and unforgiving bluntness. Here are many of his most memorable aphorisms:

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

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.

A good artist should be isolated. If he isn’t isolated, something is wrong.

I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.

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

On The War of The Worlds: “We couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night, so we did the next best thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears and utterly destroyed the CBS.”

A long-playing full shot is always what separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens.

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.

The word genius was whispered into my ear the first thing I ever heard while I was still mewling in my crib, so it never occurred to me that I wasn’t until middle age.

To Kenneth Tynan, 1967: I don’t want any description of me to be accurate; I want it to be flattering. I don’t think people who have to sing for their supper ever like to be described truthfully--not in print anyway.

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