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" 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
Thought
Waiting
Work
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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People
Mind
Know
" Everything bad that has ever happened to me has been caused by agents or lawyers. "
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Everything
Lawyers
" I feel I have to protect myself against things. So I'm pretty careful to lose most of them. "
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Pretty
Protect
Feel
" I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could. "
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Look
Ought
Say
" I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time. "
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Artist
Out
Step
" The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism. "
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Stage
Both
Form
" If you've noticed that I don't use long takes, it's not because I don't like them, but because no one gives me the necessary means to treat myself to them. It's more economical to make one image, then this image and then that image, and try to control them later, in the editing studio. "
Orson Welles
You
Long
Me
" In common with all Protestant or Jewish cultures, America was developed on the idea that your word is your bond. Otherwise, the frontier could never have been opened, 'cause it was lawless. A man's word had to mean something. "
Orson Welles
Never
Your
America
" Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there. "
Orson Welles
Enough
Wish
Politics
" 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
Money
Anything
Remembered
" Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre. "
Orson Welles
Refuge
Perfect
Movie
" There were centuries when civilization had no theater. "
Orson Welles
Had
Were
Theater
" The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it. "
Orson Welles
Playing
Essential
Flying
" I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai. "
Orson Welles
Truth
You
Theatre
" Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in senate. "
Orson Welles
Election
Depend
Politicians
" I have made an art form of the interview. The French are the best interviewers, despite their addiction to the triad, like all Cartesians. "
Orson Welles
Best
Addiction
Art
" Ecstasy is not really part of the scene we can do on celluloid. "
Orson Welles
Ecstasy
Part
Really
" 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
Think
Stop
Simple
" My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people. "
Orson Welles
People
Stop
Doctor
" 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
Audience
Too Much
Want
" 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 stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks. "
Orson Welles
People
Short
True
" Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others. "
Orson Welles
Own
Yourself
Unique
" I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford. "
Orson Welles
Which
Ford
Mean
" I started at the top and worked my way down. "
Orson Welles
Way
Down
Started
" 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
Mother
Father
Story
" I never said I was a genius. "
Orson Welles
Never
Said
Genius
" There's no biography so interesting as the one in which the biographer is present. "
Orson Welles
Present
Which
Biography
" A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong. "
Orson Welles
Good
Wrong
Something
" At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable. "
Orson Welles
Solid
Many
Appear