F for Fake Quotes

Orson Welles: I started at the top and have been working my way down ever since.

Orson Welles: Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash - the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.

Orson Welles: For my next experiment ladies and gentleman, I would appreciate the loan of any small personal object form your pocket. A key, box of matches, a coin - ah, key it is, good sir. Hold it up 10 feet over your head and watch out for the slightest hint of hanky panky... and behold before our very eyes a transformation! We've changed your key into... a coin. What happened to the key? It's been returned to you. Look closely, sir, you'll find the key back in your pocket. May we see it please? What's that, sir? Did I used to be a magician, sir? I'm still working on it. As for the key, it was not symbolic of anything... this isn't that kind of movie. You'll find the coin in your pocket now, sir. Keep your eyes on that coin sir, while it's returned to you... as your key. Should we return you to your mother? Is this your mother? No, of course not. Open your mouth wide... and we'll return you your money. And by the way, have you ever heard of Robert Houdin, speaking of magicians, I mean. Oh no, of course not. But of course, you do know my partner Francois Reichenbach. Houdin was the greatest magician who ever lived. And do you know what he said? "A magician, he said, is just an actor-Just an actor playing the part of a magician."

Orson Welles: Ladies and gentleman, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery, fraud, about lies. Tell it by the fireside or in a marketplace or in a movie, almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie. But not this time. This is a promise. For the next hour, everything you hear from us is really true and based on solid fact.

Orson Welles: I did promise that for one hour, I'd tell you only the truth. That hour, ladies and gentlemen, is over. For the past seventeen minutes, I've been lying my head off.

Orson Welles: Paris was suffering from August. This happens every year. It shuts down, closes up, and this is the time when an invader could take the country by telephone... if he could get somebody to answer it.

Orson Welles: [quoting a phenomenal art forger] Do you think I should confess? To what? Committing masterpieces?

Orson Welles: What we professional liars hope to serve is truth. I'm afraid the pompous word for that is "art".

Orson Welles: With your permission, a bit of verse by Kipling: When first the flush of a new-born sun fell on the green and gold / Our father Adam sat under the tree and scratched with a stick in the mold / And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart / Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, 'It's pretty, but is it Art?'

The Girl: [Pretending to quote a conversation between herself and Picasso] The best critical opinion is a load of horse manure.