"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 people should live with it, face up to it."

"A maverick may go his own way but he doesn't think that it's the only way or ever claim that it's the best one, except maybe for himself. And don't imagine that this raggle-taggle gypsy is claiming to be free. It's just that some of the necessities to which I am a slave are different from yours."

"I hate it when people pray on the screen. It's not because I hate praying, but whenever I see an actor fold his hands and look up in the spotlight, I'm lost. There's only one other thing in the movies I hate as much, and that's sex. You just can't get in bed or pray to God and convince me on the screen."

"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?"

"I don't want any description of me to be accurate; I want it to be flattering. I don't think people who have to sing for their supper ever like to be described truthfully - not in print anyway. We need to sell tickets, so we need good reviews."

"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."

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

"When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society."

"I have an unfortunate personality."

"The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room."

"I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts."

"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."

"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."

"Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible."

"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."

"I prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out"

"Race hate isn't human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature."

"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."

"A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die."

"A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army."

"Working is part of life, I don't know how to distinguish between the two... Work is an expression of life."

"The cinema has no boundary; it is a ribbon of dream."

"I'm not basically a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy."

"Future shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It's the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore."