Orson Welles quotes - page 6

The director is simply the audience. So the terrible burden of the director is to take the place of that yawning vacuum, to be the audience and to select from what happens during the day which movement shall be a disaster and which a gala night. His job is to preside over accidents. (Orson Welles)
If I ever own a restaurant, I will never allow the waiters to ask if the diners like their dishes. Particularly when they're talking. View quote
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.' View quote
Orson Welles
I would just like to mention Robert Houdin who in the eighteenth century invented the vanishing birdcage trick and the theater matinee - may he rot and perish. Good afternoon. View quote
Orson Welles
I'm one of those fellows so frightened of driving that I go 80 miles an hour - and the more frightened I get, the faster I go. View quote
Orson Welles
I'm never certain of a performance - my own or the other actors' - or the script or anything... But to me it seems there's only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately. View quote
Orson Welles
The word genius was whispered into my ear, the first thing I ever heard, while I was still mewling in my crib. So it never occurred to me that I wasn't until middle age. View quote
Orson Welles
One shouldn't ever be conscious of the author as lecturer. When social or moral points are too heavily stressed, I always get uncomfortable. View quote
Orson Welles
I hate it when people pray on the screen. It's not because I hate praying, but whenever I see an actor fold his hands and look up in the spotlight, I'm lost. There's only one other thing in the movies I hate as much, and that's sex. You just can't get in bed or pray to God and convince me on the screen. View quote
Orson Welles
If I don't like somebody's looks, I don't like them. View quote
Orson Welles
I was spoiled in a very strange way as a child, because everybody told me, from the moment I was able to hear, that I was absolutely marvelous, and I never heard a discouraging word for years, you see. I didn't know what was ahead of me. (Orson Welles)
In the theater there are 1,500 cameras rolling at the same time - in the cinema, only one. View quote
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. View quote
Orson Welles
As a producer, sitting on the other side of the desk, I have never once had an agent go out on a limb for his client and fight for him. I've never heard one say, 'No, just a minute! This is the actor you should use.' They will always say, 'You don't like him? I've got somebody else.' They're totally spineless. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Orson Welles
The only reason for doing a play is to make a statement about it, and by that I don't mean a conceit of the producer. View quote
Orson Welles
I think we're a kind of desperation. We're sort of a maddening luxury. The basic and essential human is the woman, and all that we're doing is trying to brighten up the place. That's why all the birds who belong to our sex have prettier feathers -- because males have got to try and justify their existence. View quote
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. Nobody gets justice people just get good luck or bad luck. View quote
Orson Welles
The director is simply the audience. . . . His job is to preside over accidents. View quote
Orson Welles
Orson Welles is a poet through his violence and through his grace. Never does he tumble from the tightrope on which he crosses cities and their dramas. [...] His handshake is as firm as he is and I think of it each time my work obliges me to leap over an obstacle. (Orson Welles)
So one night we're in the Stork Club and Welles is asking me to recite things from Shakespeare. You know, he asks for a speech and I give it to him. But he tried to trip me up.I said, "Wait a minute, pal, that isn't Shakespeare, that's Aeschylus," and then I recited the lines. He turns to me and says, "You're the Great One." View quote
Orson Welles
Like Barrymore and Laughton and Brando, he seemed to be developing an obsession with false noses, false faces. He had once, at least, played a role in his own face, Harry Lime in The Third Man, a role he had written for himself; [B]y the sixties he was encased in make-up and his own fat, like an huge operatic version of W.C. Fields. View quote
Orson Welles