Orson Welles

“Fake is as old as the Eden tree.”

“The two things you cannot do effectively on stage are pray and copulate.”

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

“The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.”

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

“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.”

“See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I'm profoundly convinced that that's a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have s...”

“I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.”

“Gluttony is not a secret vice.”

“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 p...”

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

“A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.”

“Living in the lap of luxury isn't bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.”

“One shouldn't ever be conscious of the author as lecturer. When social or moral points are too heavily stressed, I always get uncomfortable.”

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.”

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

“I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.”

“Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest.”

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

“They teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.”