A film is never perfect unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

— Orson Welles

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.

— Orson Welles

A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows - his own.

— Orson Welles

Criminals are never very amusing. It's because they're failures. Those who make real money aren't counted as criminals. This is a class distinction, not an ethical problem.

— Orson Welles

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

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

— Orson Welles

I can't work in a sewer. I come from California.

— Orson Welles

I don't believe in learning from other peoples 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.

— Orson Welles

I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God.

— Orson Welles

If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.

— Orson Welles