"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet."
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Quote collection
Orson Welles quotes (page 2 of 10)
199 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out"
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"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."
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"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."
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"A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong."
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"A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army."
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"The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism."
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"I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time."
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"A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves."
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"There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror."
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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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"I hate Woody Allen physically, I dislike that kind of man."
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"Fake is as old as the Eden tree."
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"Never expect justice in this world. That is not part of God's plan. Everybody thinks that if they don't get it, they're some kind of odd man out. And it's not true. Nobody gets justice - people just get good luck or bad luck."
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"I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it - yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don't give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by."
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"'The Godfather' was the glorification of a bunch of bums who never existed."
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"See, 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."
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"There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women."
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"The cinema has no boundary; it is a ribbon of dream."
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"Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Orson Welles. I am an actor. I am a writer. I am a producer. I am a director. I am a magician. I appear onstage and on the radio. Why are there so many of me and so few of you?"
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