Orson Welles Mean Quotations

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Cinema as a means of expression fascinates me.