American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) is known for his groundbreaking work in radio, theater, and film.He is regarded as one of the best and most important directors of all time. His particular directing approach was characterized by complex, nonlinear story structures, chiaroscuro lighting effects, strange camera angles, radio-inspired sound design, deep-focus shots, and lengthy takes.He had been a magician all of his life and was well-known for giving troop-variety-acts throughout the war. In two surveys conducted by the British Film Institute in 2002, filmmakers and reviewers chose him as the best director of all time. Welles was listed by The Daily Telegraph in 2018 as one of the 50 greatest Hollywood actors of all time.Funny Orson Welles QuotesThe son of Beatrice Ives Welles, a beautiful concert pianist (Beatrice Lucy Ives; 1883-1924) and Richard Head Welles, a well-to-do inventor (1872-1930), George Orson Welles was born on May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.“I am essentially a hack, a commercial person. If I had a hobby, I would immediately make money on it or abandon it.““Criminals are never very amusing. It’s because they’re failures.““I never said I was a genius.““Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.““I don’t pray, really, because I don’t want to bore God.““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.““Those who make real money aren’t counted as criminals. This is a class distinction, not an ethical problem.““If I don’t like somebody’s looks, I don’t like them.““Everything bad that has ever happened to me has been caused by agents or lawyers.““I have all the equipment to be a politician. Total shamelessness.“Crooks aren’t the worst people, just the stupidest. The fleas of the world.“The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.““A director is someone who presides over a series of accidents.““In the theater, there are 1,500 cameras rolling at the same time - in the cinema, only one.““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.““Everybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one!““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.““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.““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.““I’ve always found it very… sanitary to be broke.““My definition of success is not having things thrown at me!““I’ve spent most of my mature life trying to prove that I’m not irresponsible.““Only very intelligent people don’t wish they were in politics, and I’m dumb enough to want to be in there.““We will sell no wine before its time.““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.““I have no great message to the world.““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.““Now I’m an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along, and while the little needles fall off me, replace them with medallions.““The director is simply the audience. His job is to preside over accidents.““I hate women, hate them generally, not in particular but in an abstract way. I hate them because one never really learns anything about them. They are inscrutable.““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.““I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.““I don’t like television when it gets near to photographed plays.““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.““A good artist should be isolated. If he isn’t isolated, something is wrong.““There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women.““I started at the top and worked my way down.““When you are down and out, something always turns up - and it is usually the noses of your friends.““Husbands should revolt from time to time. Even the best circus number becomes boring if the beast is too tame.““I’d make my promises now if I wasn’t so busy arranging to keep them.““Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. 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?““I don’t say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.““Ecstasy is not really part of the scene we can do on celluloid.““Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.““I never make my mind up about anything at all, until it’s over and done with.““I’m one of those fellows so frightened of driving that I go 80 mi an hour - and the more frightened I get, the faster I go.“Orson Welles Quotes on JusticeOrson Welles received his diploma from the Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois, in 1931. He declined scholarships from colleges in favor of an Ireland sketching tour. He continued to travel, stopping in Morocco and Spain, where he engaged in bullfighting, as he made futile attempts to get on Broadway and the stages of London.“I must be sincere towards what I am. … Experimenting is the only thing that fills me with enthusiasm. … It is the only sphere where I feel really honest and sincere.““Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that’s printed about him.““Look at the real prodigies, and I look like nothing compared to them.““I do not suppose I should be remembered for anything. But I don’t think about my work in those terms.““Living in the lap of luxury isn’t bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.““At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable.““The camera is much more than a recording apparatus, it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.““Computers combine things to make new knowledge at such high speed that we cannot absorb it.““There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.““One shouldn’t ever be conscious of the author as a lecturer. When social or moral points are too heavily stressed, I always get uncomfortable.““It would be so much better if the critics would come, not on first nights, but on last nights, when they could exercise their undoubted flair for funeral orations.““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 Unfulfilled Promise’.“I don’t regard my career as something so precious that it comes before my convictions.““I prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out.““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.““The enemy of society is middle class and the enemy of life is middle age.““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.““I don’t take art as seriously as politics.““I love informality. I hate dressing up. I hate to be conventional - and I hate every kind of snob.““There are a thousand ways of playing a good classic. If it were effective, I would play Hamlet on a trapeze.““Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest.““Human nature is eternal; therefore one who follows his nature keeps his original nature, in the end.““When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society.““I do not suppose I should 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.““Nobody gets justice – people just get good luck or bad luck.” - ‘Orson Welles: The Unfulfilled Promise’.“Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.““My mother and father were both much more remarkable than any story of mine can make them. They seem to me just mythically wonderful.““I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.““You could write all the IDEAS of all the movies, my own included, on the head of a pin.““Hollywood is a gold-plated suburb suitable for golfers, gardeners, assorted middlemen, and contented movie stars. I am none of these things.““The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism.“Orson Welles Film QuotesOrson Welles was accepted into Katharine Cornell’s road company thanks to the recommendations of Thornton Wilder and Alexander Woollcott, with whom he made his New York debut as Tybalt in 1934. He got married, shot his first short film, and made his radio debut all in the same year.“I don’t believe in learning from other people’s pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.““There were centuries when civilization had no theater.““I would rather be on the set than doing anything.““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.““As for my style, for my vision of the cinema, editing is not simply one aspect; it’s the aspect.““Film is like a colony and there are very few colonists.““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.““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 notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.““That’s what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.““I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life”- ‘Citizen Kane’, 1941.“That’s what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.““Don’t worry about me, Gettys! Don’t worry about me! I’m Charles Foster Kane! I’m no cheap, crooked politician, trying to save himself from the consequences of his crimes!”- ‘Citizen Kane’, 1941.“A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.““A movie in production is the greatest train set a boy could ever have.““A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows — his own.”- ‘Citizen Kane’, 1941.“I’ve never understood the cult of Hitchcock. Particularly the late American movies… Egotism and laziness. And they’re all lit like television shows.““I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theater, you expect me to tell you the truth about something.““Don’t let Ted Turner deface my movie with his crayons.”- ‘Citizen Kane’, 1941.“A movie studio is the best toy a boy ever had.““Old age: It’s the only disease you don’t look forward to being cured of.”- ‘Citizen Kane’, 1941.“A poet needs a pen, a painter a brush, and a director an army.““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.““A policeman’s job is only easy in a police state.”-‘Touch of Evil’, 1958.“Cinema as a means of expression fascinates me.““I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.““I’m not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I’m no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom. I mark only the happy hours, like the sundial, because otherwise, I would have gone nuts.“Famous Orson Welles QuotesDespite all of his commercial failures, Orson Welles was given the Directors Guild of America’s highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award, in 1984 and the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1975. After that, his filmography saw a steady ascent in repute.“Race hate isn’t human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.““Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible.““FDR used to say, ‘You and I are the two best actors in America’.““If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.““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.““I have always been more interested in experiment than in accomplishment.““I’m not basically a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy.““Only very intelligent people don’t wish they were in politics, and I’m dumb enough to want to be in there.““I love moving around from town to town. I never got on a train in my life without my spirits rising.““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.““My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.““The basic and essential human is the woman.““There’s no biography so interesting as the one in which the biographer is present.““Everything about me is a contradiction, and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles.““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.““Future shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It’s the feeling that nothing is permanent any more.““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.““There’s a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don’t reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.““I think it is always a tremendously good formula in any art form to admit the limitations of the form.““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.““The only really good artists are feminine. I can’t admit the existence of an artist whose dominant personality is masculine.““The trouble with a movie is that it’s old before it’s released. It’s no accident that it comes in a can.““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.““On my tombstone, I want written: ‘He never did ‘Love Boat!’.““I drag my myth around with me.““Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing.““If I had only one film in the world to save, it would be ‘Grand Illusion’.““The truth about any man can only be calculated by the sum of everything that has been said about him.““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.““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.““Criticism is the essence of creation.““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.““You’re beautiful. Yes, you are, you’re very, very beautiful. Extremely beautiful.““Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan.““An artist is always out of step with the time. He has to be.““My kind of director is an actor-director who writes.““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.““A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die.”"[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!““A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves.““Working is part of life; I don’t know how to distinguish between the two… Work is an expression of life.““I feel I have to protect myself against things. So I’m pretty careful to lose most of them.““People are losing the capacity to listen to words or follow ideas.““I worry a lot about taking care of my dependents, all those perfectly ordinary middle-class preoccupations.““Anybody who speaks quietly and shrivels up in the company is unbelievably arrogant.”
American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) is known for his groundbreaking work in radio, theater, and film.
