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“He married for love. Love. That’s why he did everything. That’s why he went into politics. It seems we weren’t enough, he wanted all the voters to love him too.”
talking about Kane
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“- Kane: 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.”
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“I can remember everything. That’s my curse, young man. It’s the greatest curse that’s ever been inflicted on the human race: memory.”
-
I guess “Rosebud” is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle… a missing piece.
trying to figure out the meaning of Kane’s last word “Rosebud”
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“I don’t know how to run a newspaper, Mr. Thatcher; I just try everything I can think of.”
talking to Walter Parks Thatcher
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“- Susan Alexander Kane: I don’t know many people.
– Kane: I know too many people. I guess we’re both lonely.”
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“- Kane: It’s obvious the people prefer Jim Gettys to me.
– Jedediah Leland: You talk about the people as though you owned them, as though they belong to you. As long as I can remember, you’ve talked about giving the people their rights, as if you can make them a present of liberty, as a reward for services rendered.”
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“You’re the greatest fool I’ve ever known, Kane. If it was anybody else, I’d say what’s going to happen to you would be a lesson to you. Only you’re going to need more than one lesson. And you’re going to get more than one lesson.”
talking to Kane
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“Old age. It’s the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don’t look forward to being cured of.”
talking to Jerry Thompson
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“I suppose he had a private sort of greatness, but he kept it to himself.”
talking about Kane
-
“I don’t think there’s one word that can describe a man’s life.”
trying to figure out the meaning of Kane’s last word “Rosebud”
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“Mr. Thatcher is one of our most devotedreaders, Mr. Bernstein. He knows what’s wrong with every issue since I’ve taken charge.”
talking to Mr. Bernstein about Walter Parks Thatcher
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“Don’t worry about me, Gettys! Don’t worry about me! I’m Charles Foster Kane! I’m no cheap, crooked politician, trying to save himself from the consequences of his crimes!”
talking to James W. Gettys
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– Newswoman: If you could’ve found out what “Rosebud” meant, I bet that would’ve explained everything.
– Jerry Thompson: I don’t think so; Mr. Kane was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it. Maybe “Rosebud” was something he couldn’t get, or something he lost.
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“If I don’t look after the interests of the underprivileged, maybe somebody else will, maybe somebody without any money or property… and that would be too bad!”
-
“Old age is the only disease you don’t look forward to being cured of.”
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“I entered this campaign with one purpose only, to point out and make public the dishonesty, the downright villainy of Boss Jim W. Gettys’ political machine, now in complete control of the government of this state.”
-
“Rosebud…”
opening line and his last word as he dies
-
“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 had anybody to look after their interests.”
-
“You don’t love anybody! Me or anybody else! You want to be loved – that’s all you want! Whatever you want – just name it and it’s yours! Only love me! Don’t expect me to love you!”
talking to Kane
-
“- Walter Parks Thatcher: What would you like to have been?
– Kane: Everything you hate.”talking about being a better person without wealth
-
“- Emily Monroe Norton Kane: Sometimes I think I’d prefer a rival of flesh-and-blood.
– Kane: Oh Emily, I don’t spend that much time on the newspaper.
– Emily Monroe Norton Kane: It isn’t just the time. It’s what you print – attacking the President.”
-
“Now I can afford to make some promises. The working man and the slum child know they can expect my best efforts in their interests. The nation’s ordinary citizens know that I’ll do everything in my power to protect the underprivileged, the underpaid, and the underfed.”
talking about competing against Getty in the election
-
“We have no secrets from our readers.”
talking to Mr. Bernstein
-
“There’s only one person who’s going to decide what I’m going to do and that’s me.”
-
“All he ever wanted out of life was love. That’s the tragedy of Charles Foster Kane. He just didn’t have any to give.”
-
“- Kane: Are we going to declare war on Spain, or are we not?
– Jedediah Leland: The Inquirer already has.”
-
“You don’t care about anything except you. You just want to persuade people that you love them so much that they ought to love you back. Only you want love on your own terms. Something to be played your way, according to your rules.”
talking to Kane
-
“- Kane: Don’t go, Susan. You mustn’t go. You can’t do this to me.
– Susan Alexander Kane: 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.”
-
“- Emily Monroe Norton Kane: Charles, people will think…
– Kane: What I tell them to think.”
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“- Kane: He’s still a well-meaning fathead who’s letting a pack of high-pressure crooks run his administration. This whole oil scandal…
– 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.”
-
“I made no campaign promises, because until a few weeks ago, I had no hope of being elected. Now however, I am something more than a hope.”
talking about entering the campaign
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“Mr. Charles Foster Kane, in every essence of his social beliefs, and by the dangerous manner in which he has persistently attacked the American traditions of private property, initiative, and opportunity for advancement, is in fact, nothing more or less than a Communist!”
accusing Kane
-
“We never lost as much as we made.”
Citizen Kane Quotes
Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher. Pauline Kael
Though I respect hugely the effort and the care and the beauty of games, I want to be working with people who want to create the ‘War & Peace’ of games, the ‘Citizen Kane’ of games, and not just be warming up George Romero. Clive Barker
I don’t think ‘Citizen Kane’ stands more than one watch. Power corrupts. Who didn’t know that? John Cooper Clarke
I remember when we were making ‘They Call It Pro Football,’ which was our ‘Citizen Kane.’ The first line is ‘It starts with a whistle and ends with a gun.’ Steve Sabol
My dad had a commercial film company, so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s. John Cusack
There is more good writing and good acting in any ten minutes of Twister than in, say, all of Citizen Kane. Orson Scott Card
I really like my first movie a lot, ‘Kicking and Screaming.’ I think it’s a – I’m very pleased and proud of that movie, but it wasn’t the – it wasn’t ‘Citizen Kane’ right out of the box, you know? It wasn’t ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape.’ Noah Baumbach
You don’t have to know anything about the Shakers to appreciate Mr. Copland’s score for ‘Appalachian Spring’ any more than you have to know who William Randolph Hearst was to understand ‘Citizen Kane.’ Terry Teachout
We didn’t even think about it, you know? I used to collect laser discs, and you’d have some college professor analyzing It’s a Wonderful Life or Citizen Kane, and now it is pretty funny – the idea of commentary for a silly kid’s movie, you know? Dana Carvey
I discovered Orson Welles in college; my freshman English professor screened ‘Citizen Kane’ for us, and I wound up writing a 20-page term paper on it. Claire Danes
I like ‘Citizen Kane,’ I like ‘The Godfather,’ all the ones that everyone should see, whether you’re an actor or not. Matt Bomer
