Orson Welles Quotes

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Orson Welles

Profession : Actor

Birth : May 6, 1915

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.

Orson Welles

There were centuries when civilization had no theater.

Orson Welles

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

Orson Welles

Each multiplex has screens allocated to each studio. The screens need filling. Studios have to create product to fill their screen, and the amount of good product is limited.

Orson Welles

I have no great message to the world.

Orson Welles

Hollywood is the only industry, even taking in soup companies, which does not have laboratories for the purpose of experimentation.

Orson Welles

I worry a lot about taking care of my dependents, all those perfectly ordinary middle-class preoccupations.

Orson Welles

I am essentially a hack, a commercial person. If I had a hobby, I would immediately make money on it or abandon it.

Orson Welles

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

Orson Welles

I'm not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I'm no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom.

Orson Welles

I know people who have a much better recollection of their childhood than I do. They remember very well when they were a year and a half and two years old. I've only one or two daguerreotypes that come to mind.

Orson Welles

Look at the real prodigies, and I look like nothing compared to them.

Orson Welles

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

Orson Welles

Everybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one!

Orson Welles

I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Orson Welles

At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable.

Orson Welles

I don't want to forgive myself. That's why I hate psychoanalysis I think if you're guilty of something you should live with it. Get rid of it - how can you get rid of a real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.

Orson Welles

Did you ever stop to think why cops are always famous for being dumb? Simple. Because they don't have to be anything else.

Orson Welles

I would rather be on the set than doing anything.

Orson Welles

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.

Orson Welles