Citizen Kane (1941)
Orson Welles: Kane
Photos
Quotes
-
Susan Alexander Kane : I don't know many people.
Kane : I know too many people. I guess we're both lonely.
-
Kane : I don't think there's one word that can describe a man's life.
-
Kane : You know, Mr. Thatcher, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man.
Walter Parks Thatcher : Don't you think you are?
Kane : I think I did pretty well under the circumstances.
Walter Parks Thatcher : What would you like to have been?
Kane : Everything you hate.
-
[first lines]
Kane : [just as he dies] Rosebud...
-
Mr. Bernstein : There's a lot of statues in Europe you haven't bought yet.
Kane : You can't blame me. They've been making statues for some two thousand years, and I've only been collecting for five.
-
Kane : [his answer to being blackmailed] There's only one person in the world who's going to decide what I'm going to do and that's me...
-
Kane : You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars *next* year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... sixty years.
-
Kane : Well, I always gagged on that silver spoon.
-
Kane : Hello, Jedediah.
Jedediah Leland : Hello, Charlie. I didn't know we were speaking...
Kane : Sure, we're speaking, Jedediah: you're fired.
-
Emily Monroe Norton Kane : Really Charles, people will think...
Kane : What I tell them to think.
-
Emily Monroe Norton Kane : He happens to be the president, Charles, not you.
Kane : That's a mistake that will be corrected one of these days.
-
Kane : Mr. Carter, here's a three-column headline in the Chronicle. Why hasn't the Inquirer a three-column headline?
Herbert Carter : The news wasn't big enough.
Kane : Mr. Carter, if the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.
Mr. Bernstein : That's right, Mr. Kane.
-
[Susan is leaving Kane]
Kane : [pleading] Don't go, Susan. You mustn't go. You can't do this to me.
Susan Alexander Kane : I see. So it's *you* who this is being done to. It's not me at all. Not how I feel. Not what it means to me.
[Susan laughs]
Susan Alexander Kane : I can't do this to you?
[Susan smiles coldly]
Susan Alexander Kane : Oh, yes I can.
-
Walter Parks Thatcher : You're too old to be calling me Mr. Thatcher, Charles.
Kane : You're too old to be called anything else.
-
Kane : Don't believe everything you hear on the radio.
-
Kane : [to Thatcher] The trouble is, you don't realize you're talking to two people. As Charles Foster Kane, who has eighty-two thousand six hundred thirty-four shares of Public Transit Preferred. You see, I do have a general idea of my holdings. I sympathize with you. Charles Foster Kane is a scoundrel. His paper should be run out of town. A committee should be formed to boycott him. You may, if you can form such a committee, put me down for a contribution of on thousand dollars. On the other hand, I am the publisher of the Inquirer! As such, it's my duty - and I'll let you in on a little secret, it's also my pleasure - to see to it that decent, hard-working people in this community aren't robbed blind by a pack of money-mad pirates just because - they haven't anybody to look after their interests.
-
Kane : Are we going to declare war on Spain, or are we not?
Jedediah Leland : The Inquirer already has.
Kane : [jokingly] You long-faced, overdressed anarchist!
Jedediah Leland : I am *not* overdressed!
Kane : You are too! Mr. Bernstein, look at his necktie!
-
Kane : A toast, Jedediah: to Love on my own terms.
-
Kane : This gentleman was saying...
James W. Gettys : I am not a gentleman. I don't even know what a gentleman is.
-
Kane : The news goes on for twenty-four hours a day.
-
Interviewer in 1935 Newsreel : Mr. Kane, how did you find business conditions in Europe?
Kane : How did I find business conditions in Europe? With great difficulty.
-
Kane : Read the cable.
Mr. Bernstein : "Girls delightful in Cuba. Stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery, but don't feel right spending your money. Stop. There is no war in Cuba, signed Wheeler." Any answer?
Kane : Yes. "Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I'll provide the war."
-
Kane : You can't buy a bag of peanuts in this town without someone writing a song about you.
-
Kane : I don't know how to run a newspaper, Mr. Thatcher; I just try everything I can think of.
-
Jedediah Leland : You still eating?
Kane : I'm still hungry.
-
Kane : We have no secrets from our readers. Mr. Thatcher is one of our most devoted readers, Mr. Bernstein. He knows what's wrong with every issue since I've taken charge.
-
Kane : I run a couple of newspapers. What do you do?
-
Kane : You never should have married a newspaper man... they're worse than sailors!
-
Kane : As Charles Foster Kane who owns eighty-two thousand, six hundred and thirty-four shares of public transit - you see, I do have a general idea of my holdings - I sympathize with you. Charles Foster Kane is a scoundrel. His paper should be run out of town. A committee should be formed to boycott him. You may, if you can form such a committee, put me down for a contribution of one thousand dollars.
