I think the idea of doing something that was so original in the first place, and later on being called classic, is amazing.

Future shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It’s the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore.

I’m a lurid character!

The camera is much more than a recording apparatus, it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.

If everyone worked with wide-angle lenses, I’d shoot all my films in 75mm, because I believe very strongly in the possibilities of the 75mm.

The movies are the only industry, in the world, that is constantly looking for talent.

Human nature is eternal; therefore one who follows his nature keeps his original nature, in the end.

I discovered at the age of six that everything was a phony, worked with mirrors. Since then, I’ve always wanted to be a magician.

Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing.

I have always been more interested in experiment, than in accomplishment.

I had no interest in movies as a child. I came to them as an adult.

There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.

I don’t pray really, because I don’t want to bore God.

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.

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.

The difference between a good movie and a bad one is whether you can feel the love.

Working is part of life, I don’t know how to distinguish between the two… Work is an expression of life.

I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life.

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

I’ve spent most of my mature life trying to prove that I’m not irresponsible.

A lot of people think that a director is somebody who has a vision.

My theory is that everything went to hell with Prohibition, because it was a law nobody could obey. So the whole concept of the rule of law was corrupted at that moment. Then came Vietnam, and marijuana, which clearly shouldn’t be illegal, but is. If you go to jail for ten years in Texas when you light up a joint, who are you? You’re a lawbreaker. It’s just like Prohibition was. When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society, you see?

The basic and essential human is the woman.

You’re beautful. Yes you are, you’re very very beautiful. Extremely beautiful.

I feel I have to protect myself against things. So I’m pretty careful to lose most of them.

Films should be like a knife, they should make an impression on you.

A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.

Old age is the only disease you dont want to be cured of.

A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves.

The best thing commercially, which is the worst artistically, by and large, is the most successful.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

A director is someone who presides over a series of accidents.

The trouble with a movie is that it’s old before it’s released. It’s no accident that it comes in a can.

Ignorance 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.

Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in senate.

I do not believe in God, I believe in Picasso.

Criticism is the essence of creation.

Why spend 18 hours watching someone else’s war, when you know how it comes out? We win, and then have to buy all their cars.

We will sell no wine before its time.

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?

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

People are losing the capacity to listen to words or follow ideas.

If I had only one film in the world to save, it would be ‘Grand Illusion.

A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die.

The enemy of society is middle class and the enemy of life is middle age.

I’ve been in this business 30 years, and I’ve never seen the inside of a studio.

Race hate isn’t human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.

As for my style, for my vision of the cinema, editing is not simply one aspect; it’s the aspect.

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

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.

We’re all born mad. Some remain so.

I prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out.

I drag my myth around with me.

The cinema has no boundary; it is a ribbon of dream.

Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society.

I don’t like television when it gets near to photographed plays.

Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.

I have an unfortunate personality.

I am not a horror film buff. I am a film buff.

Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible.

In my real movie-going days, which were the thirties, you didn’t stand in line. You strolled down the street and sallied into the theater at any hour of the day or night.

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

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.