"Crooks aren't the worst people, just the stupidest. The fleas of the world."
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Quote collection
Orson Welles quotes (page 4 of 10)
199 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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 don't think any word can explain a man's life."
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"The first thing one must remember about film is that it is a young medium. And it is essential for every responsible artist to cultivate the ground that has been left fallow."
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"I'm a provincial. I live very much like a hermit: reading, listening to music, working in the cutting room, writing, commercial work - which doesn't take up that much time."
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"Criticism is the essence of creation."
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"[I have a] fondness for telling stories, like the Arab storytellers on the marketplace. ... I will never grow tired of [telling] stories [and] I make the mistake of thinking that everyone has the same enthusiasm!"
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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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"I love informality. I hate dressing up. I hate to be conventional - and I hate every kind of snob."
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"A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die."
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"The camera is much more than a recording apparatus, it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world."
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"Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan."
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". . . you [film critics] always overstress the value of images. You judge films in the first place by their visual impact instead of looking for content. This is a great disservice to the cinema. It is like judging a novel only by the quality of its prose. I was guilty of the same sin when I first started writing for the cinema. . . . Now I feel that only the literary mind can help the movies out of that cul de sac into which they have been driven by mere technicians and artificers."
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"I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts."
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"I have wasted the greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paintbox, which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. It's about two percent moviemaking and ninety-eight percent hustling. It's no way to spend a life."
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"Hollywood 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."
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"Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy."
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"What's happening now is what happened before, and often what's going to happen again sometime or other"
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"I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose."
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"I have an unfortunate personality."
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