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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.

Orson Welles

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Orson Welles
Age: 70 †
Born: 1915
Born: May 6
Died: 1985
Died: October 10
Actor
Character Actor
Director
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Librettist
Magician
Playwright
Radio Personality
Kenosha
Wisconsin
George Orson Welles
Failure
Serious
Almost
Lost
Death
Stories
World
Paradise
Defeat

More quotes by Orson Welles

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I think we're a kind of desperation. We're sort of a maddening luxury. The basic and essential human is the woman, and all that we're doing is trying to brighten up the place. That's why all the birds who belong to our sex have prettier feathers - because males have got to try and justify their existence.
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Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy.
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The trouble with a movie is that it's old before it's released. It's no accident that it comes in a can.
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Good evening, ladies and gentleman. 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?
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I hate Woody Allen physically, I dislike that kind of man.
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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.
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The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.
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A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.
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Working is part of life, I don't know how to distinguish between the two... Work is an expression of life.
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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.
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Gluttony is not a secret vice.
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A movie studio is the best toy a boy ever had.
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There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.
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Anybody who speaks quietly and shrivels up in company is unbelievably arrogant.
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My kind of director is an actor-director who writes.
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