I have no great message to the world. — Orson Welles

I can think of nothing that an audience won’t understand. The only problem is to interest them; once they are interested, they understand anything in the world. — Orson Welles

Crooks aren’t the worst people, just the stupidest. The fleas of the world. — Orson Welles

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. — Orson Welles

The director is the most overrated artist in the world. He is the only artist who, with no talent whatsoever, can be a success for 50 years without his lack of talent ever being discovered. — Orson Welles

Almost all serious stories in the world are stories of failure with a death in it. But there is more lost paradise in them than defeat. — Orson Welles

The movies] make the sort of comment only a novel can make, an allusion to the world in which people live, the psychological and economic motivations, the influences of the period in which they lived. — Orson Welles

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

Paris is the playwright’s delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor’s city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head. — Orson Welles

By nature, I am an experimentalist. I don’t believe much in accomplishment. — Orson Welles

Criticism is the essence of creation. — Orson Welles

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

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time. — Orson Welles

In the theater there are 1,500 cameras rolling at the same time–in the cinema, only one. — Orson Welles

We will sell no wine before its time. — Orson Welles

Husbands should revolt from time to time. Even the best circus number becomes boring if the beast is too tame. — Orson Welles

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. — Orson Welles

A movie studio is the best toy a boy ever had. — Orson Welles

Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre. — Orson Welles

A movie in production is the greatest train set a boy could ever have. — Orson Welles

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

Hollywood is a gold–plated suburb suitable for golfers, gardeners, assorted middlemen, and contented movies stars. I am none of these things. — Orson Welles

You could write all the IDEAS of all the movies, my own included, on the head of a pin. — Orson Welles

I’ve never understood the cult of Hitchcock. Particularly the late American movies… Egotism and laziness. And they’re all lit like television shows. — Orson Welles

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. — Orson Welles

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. — Orson Welles

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

All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better–So why do I hate my life? — Orson Scott Card

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

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

There are three intolerable things in life–cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women… — Orson Welles

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

There’s no biography so interesting as the one in which the biographer is present. — Orson Welles

My mother and father were both much more remarkable than any story of mine can make them. They seem to me just mythically wonderful. — Orson Welles

Living in the lap of luxury isn’t bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up. — Orson Welles

I can’t work in a sewer. I come from California. — Orson Welles

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. — Orson Welles

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

When television came along, I’d already done more than 10 years of radio work and I thought everyone would want me. I sat around waiting for the phone to ring–and it didn’t. — Orson Welles

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. — Orson Welles

Film is like a colony and there are very few colonists. — Orson Welles

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

I got that good a contract because I really didn’t want to make a film. — Orson Welles

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

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. — Orson Welles

The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics–the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room. — Orson Welles

Hollywood expects you to experiment but on a film that makes money and if you don’t make money, you’re to blame. Your job is to make money. — Orson Welles

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

Ecstasy is not really part of the scene we can do on celluloid. — Orson Welles

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

A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows–his own. — Orson Welles

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. — Orson Welles

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him… — Orson Scott Card

I love informality. I hate dressing up. I hate to be conventional–and I hate every kind of snob. — Orson Welles

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. — Orson Welles

I think I made essential a mistake in staying in movies, because I–but it’s a mistake I can’t regret, because it’s like saying, ‘I shouldn’t have stayed married to that woman, but I did because I love her.’ — Orson Welles

I love moving around from town to town. I never got on a train in my life without my spirits rising. — Orson Welles

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

Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan. — Orson Welles

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

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

I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford. — Orson Welles