Citizen Kane (1941)

Share this quote on facebook Opening line; his last word as he dies.

Share this quote on facebook 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...

Share this quote on facebook 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!

Share this quote on facebook You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man.

Share this quote on facebook 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... 60 years.

Share this quote on facebook I always gagged on that silver spoon.

Share this quote on facebook The news goes on for 24 hours a day.

Share this quote on facebook If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.

Share this quote on facebook 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.

Share this quote on facebook I was on my way to the Western Manhattan Warehouse in search of my youth. You see, my mother died a long time ago and her things were put in storage out West. There wasn't any other place to put them. I thought I'd send for them now. Tonight, I was going to take a look at them. You know, a sort of sentimental journey.

Share this quote on facebook I run a couple of newspapers. What do you do?

Share this quote on facebook [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. 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. Jim Gettys, Jim Gettys has something less than a chance. Every straw vote, every independent poll shows that I'll be elected. Now I can afford to make some promises. The working man, 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.

Share this quote on facebook 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.

Share this quote on facebook I don't think there's one word that can describe a man's life.

Share this quote on facebook A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows - his own.

Share this quote on facebook 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. [louder] Gettys. I'm going to send you to Sing Sing! Sing Sing, Gettys! SING SIIIIIIIIING!

Share this quote on facebook You can't buy a bag of peanuts in this town without someone writing a song about you.

Share this quote on facebook Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Switzerland... he was thrown out of a lot of colleges.

Share this quote on facebook President's niece, huh? Before Mr. Kane's through with her, she'll be a president's wife.

Share this quote on facebook We never lost as much as we made.

Share this quote on facebook [to Jedediah Leland] Mr. Kane is finishing the review you started - he's writing a bad notice. I guess that'll show you.

Share this quote on facebook Old age. It's the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don't look forward to being cured of.

Share this quote on facebook A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.

Share this quote on facebook 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.

Share this quote on facebook [referring to Kane's 'Declaration of Principles'] I'd like to keep that particular piece of paper myself. I have a hunch it might turn out to be something pretty important, a document...like the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution...[Looks directly at Kane] and my first report card at school. [Kane smiles sheepishly]

Share this quote on facebook I suppose he had some private sort of greatness, but he kept it to himself. He never gave himself away. He never gave anything away, he just left you a tip, hmm? Ha. He had a generous mind. I don't suppose anybody ever had so many opinions. But he never believed in anything except Charlie Kane. He never had a conviction except Charlie Kane in his life. I suppose he died without one. It must have been pretty unpleasant. Of course, a lot of us check out without having any special convictions about death, but we do know what we believe in, we do believe in something.

Share this quote on facebook 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. Guess all he really wanted out of life was love. That's Charlie's story, how he lost it. You see, he just didn't have any to give. Well, he loved Charlie Kane of course, very dearly, and his mother, I guess he always loved her.

Share this quote on facebook You know when I was a young man there used to be an impression around that nurses were pretty, well it was no truer then than it is today.

Share this quote on facebook Newsreel Narrator: Kane helped to change the world, but Kane's world now is history. The great yellow journalist himself lived to be history. Outlived his power to make it...

Share this quote on facebook Newsreel Narrator: ...Alone in his never-finished, already decaying pleasure palace, aloof, seldom visited, never photographed, an emperor of new strength continued to direct his failing empire, varyingly attempted to sway as he once did the destinies of a nation that had ceased to listen to him, ceased to trust him. Then last week, as it must to all men, death came to Charles Foster Kane.

Share this quote on facebook Rawlston: It isn't enough to tell us what a man did. You've got to tell us who he was.

Share this quote on facebook Walter Parks Thatcher: 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!

Share this quote on facebook Walter Parks Thatcher: [Quoting from Kane's letter] "Sorry but I'm not interested in gold mines, oil wells, shipping or real estate...One item on your list intrigues me, the New York Inquirer, a little newspaper I understand we acquired in a foreclosure proceeding. Please don't sell it. I'm coming back to America to take charge. I think it would be fun to run a newspaper." [disgusted] I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!

Share this quote on facebook Politician: The words of Charles Foster Kane are a menace to every working man in this land. He is today what he has always been - and always will be - a Fascist!

Share this quote on facebook Susan: [referring to Xanadu] Oh, a person could go crazy in this dump with nobody to talk to, nobody to have any fun with...49,000 acres of nothin' but scenery and statues. I'm lonesome.

Share this quote on facebook Susan: Love! You don't love anybody! Me or anybody else! You want to be loved - that's all you want! I'm Charles Foster Kane. Whatever you want - just name it and it's yours! But you've gotta love me!

Share this quote on facebook Raymond: [last lines] Throw that junk in.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: Now look, Mr. Carter, here's a front-page story in the Chronicle about a Mrs. Harry Silverstone in Brooklyn who's missing. Now, she's probably murdered. Here's a picture of her in the Chronicle. Why isn't there something about it in the Inquirer?
Carter: Because we are running a newspaper...
...
Carter: There's no proof that that woman is murdered, or even that she's dead...It's not our function to report the gossip of housewives. If we were interested in that kind of thing, Mr. Kane, we could fill the paper twice over daily.
Charles: Mr. Carter, that's the kind of thing we are going to be interested in, from now on.

Share this quote on facebook Leland: These men who were with the Chronicle. Weren't they just as devoted to the Chronicle politics as they are now to our policies?
Bernstein: Sure, they're just like anybody else. They got work to do, they do it! Only they happen to be the best men in the business!
Leland: Do we stand for the same things the Chronicle stands for, Bernstein?
Bernstein: Certainly not. Listen, Mr. Kane, he'll have them changed to his kind of newspapermen in a week!
Leland: There's always a chance, of course, that they'll change Mr. Kane, without his knowing it.

Share this quote on facebook Emily: Sometimes, I think I'd prefer a rival of flesh-and-blood.
Charles: Oh Emily, I don't spend that much time on the newspaper.
Emily: It isn't just the time. It's what you print - attacking the President.
Charles: You mean Uncle John.
Emily: I mean the President of the United States.
Charles: He's still Uncle John, and he's still a well-meaning fathead who's letting a pack of high-pressure crooks run his administration. This whole oil scandal...
Emily: He happens to be the President, Charles, not you.
Charles: That's a mistake that will be corrected one of these days.

Share this quote on facebook Emily: Really Charles, people will think...
Charles: ...what I tell them to think.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man.
Walter Parks Thatcher: Don't you think you are?
Charles: I think I did pretty well under the circumstances.
Walter Parks Thatcher: What would you like to have been?
Charles: Everything you hate.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: Six years ago, I looked at a picture of the world's greatest newspaper men. I felt like a kid in front of a candy store. Well, tonight, six years later, I got my candy -- all of it. Welcome, gentlemen, to the Inquirer! Make up an extra copy of that picture and send it to the Chronicle, will you please? It'll make you all happy to learn that our circulation this morning was the greatest in New York, 684,000.
Bernstein: Six hundred and eighty-four thousand one hundred and thirty-two!
Charles: Right! Having thus welcomed you, I hope you'll forgive my rudeness in taking leave of you. I'm going abroad next week for a vacation. I've promised my doctor for some time now that I'd leave when I could, and I now realize that I can't.
Bernstein: Say, Mr. Kane, as long as you're promising, there's a lot of pictures and statues in Europe you haven't bought yet.
Charles: You can't blame me, Mr. Bernstein. They've been making statues for two thousand years, and I've only been buying for five.
Bernstein: Promise me, Mr. Kane.
Charles: I promise you, Mr. Bernstein.
Bernstein: Thank you.
Charles: Mr. Bernstein?...You don't expect me to keep any of those promises, do you?

Share this quote on facebook Leland: You still eating?
Charles: I'm still hungry.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: Are we going to declare war on Spain, or are we not?
Leland: The Inquirer already has.
Charles: You long-faced, overdressed anarchist!
Leland: I am not overdressed!
Charles: You are too. Mr. Bernstein, look at his necktie.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: Read the cable.
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?
Charles: Yes. "Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I'll provide the war."

Share this quote on facebook Leland: Bernstein, am I a stuffed shirt? Am I a horse-faced hypocrite? Am I a New England school marm?
Bernstein: Yes. If you thought I'd answer you any differently than what Mr. Kane tells you...

Share this quote on facebook Charles Foster Kane III: Mother, is Pop governor yet?
Emily: Not yet, Junior.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: This gentleman was saying...
Boss Jim Gettys: I'm not a gentleman. [To Emily] Your husband's only trying to be funny calling me one. I don't even know what a gentleman is. You see, my idea of a gentleman...Well, Mrs. Kane, if I owned a newspaper and I didn't like the way somebody was doing things, some politician say, I'd fight him with everything I had. Only I wouldn't show him in a convict's suit with stripes so his children could see the picture in the paper, or his mother.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: [after his affair with Susan is revealed] I'm staying here. I can fight this all alone.
Emily: Charles, if you don't listen to reason, it may be too late.
Charles: Too late. For what? For you and this public thief to take the love of the people of this state away from me?
Susan: Charlie, you got other things to think about. Your little boy, you don't want him to read about you in the papers.
Charles: There's only one person in the world who decides what I'm going to do, and that's me.
Emily: You decided what you were going to do, Charles, some time ago.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: I set back the sacred cause of reform, is that it? All right, that's the way they want it, the people have made their choice. It's obvious the people prefer Jim Gettys to me.
Leland: You talk about the people as though you owned them, as though they belong to you. Goodness. 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...Remember the working man?
Charles: I'll get drunk too, Jedediah, if it'll do any good.
Leland: Aw, it won't do any good. Besides, you never get drunk. You used to write an awful lot about the workingman...He's turning into something called organized labor. You're not going to like that one little bit when you find out it means that your working man expects something is his right, not as your gift! Charlie, when your precious underprivileged really get together, oh boy! That's going to add up to something bigger than your privileges! Then I don't know what you'll do! Sail away to a desert island probably and lord it over the monkeys!
Charles: I wouldn't worry about it too much, Jed. There'll probably be a few of them there to let me know when I do something wrong.
Leland: Mmm, you may not always be so lucky...You don't care about anything except you. You just want to persuade people that you love 'em 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.

Share this quote on facebook [On Kane finishing Leland's bad review of Susan's opera singing]
Thompson: Everybody knows that story, Mr. Leland. But why did he do it? How could a man write a notice like that?
Leland: You just don't know Charlie. He thought that by finishing that notice he could show me he was an honest man. He was always trying to prove something. The whole thing about Susie being an opera singer, that was trying to prove something. You know what the headline was the day before the election? "Candidate Kane found in love nest with quote, singer, unquote." He was gonna take the quotes off the singer.

Share this quote on facebook Thompson: He made an awful lot of money.
Bernstein: Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money...if all you want is to make a lot of money.

Share this quote on facebook Reporter: [Asking about the potential for war in Europe] Isn't that correct?
Charles: Don't believe everything you hear on the radio. Read the 'Inquirer'!
Reporter: How did you find business conditions in Europe?
Charles: How did I find business conditions in Europe, Mr. Bones? With great difficulty. [He laughs heartily]
Reporter: You glad to be back, Mr. Kane?
Charles: I'm always glad to be back, young man. I'm an American. Always been an American. Anything else? When I was a reporter, we asked them quicker than that. Come on, young fella.
Reporter: What do you think of the chances for war in Europe?
Charles: I've talked with the responsible leaders of the Great Powers - England, France, Germany, and Italy - they're too intelligent to embark on a project which would mean the end of civilization as we now know it. You can take my word for it. There'll be no war.

Share this quote on facebook Walter Parks Thatcher: You're too old to be calling me Mr. Thatcher, Charles.
Charles: You're too old to be called anything else.

Share this quote on facebook Charles: Hello, Jedediah.
Leland: Hello, Charlie. I didn't know we were speaking...
Charles: Sure, we're speaking, Jedediah: you're fired.

Share this quote on facebook Susan: You're awful funny, aren't you? I'll tell you one thing you're not going to be funny about, and that's my singin'. I'm through. I never wanted to do it in the first place.
Charles: You will continue with your singing, Susan. I don't propose to have myself made ridiculous.
Susan: You don't propose to have yourself made ridiculous?! What about me? I'm the one who's got to do the singin'. I'm the one who gets the razzberries. Why don't you let me alone?

Share this quote on facebook Susan: Oh sure, you give me things. But that don't mean anything to you.
Charles: You're in a tent, darling. You aren't at home. I can hear you very well if you speak in a normal tone of voice.
Susan: What's the difference between giving me a bracelet or giving somebody else a hundred thousand dollars for a statue you're gonna keep crated up and never even look at? It's just money, it doesn't mean anything! You never really give me anything that belongs to you, that you care about!
Charles: Susan, I want you to stop this.
Susan: I'm not gonna stop it.
Charles: Right now!
Susan: You never gave me anything in your whole life. You just tried to bribe me into giving you something.
Charles: Susan!

Share this quote on facebook Charles: ...Whatever I do, I do because I love you.
Susan: You don't love me. You want me to love you. [She mimics him] 'Sure, I'm Charles Foster Kane. Whatever you want, just name it and it's yours. But you've gotta love me!'
[Kane slaps her.]
Susan: Don't tell me you're sorry.
Charles: I'm not sorry.

Share this quote on facebook [Susan is leaving Kane]
Susan: Goodbye Charlie.
Charles: Susan. Please don't go. No. Please, Susan. From now on, everything will be exactly the way you want it to be, not the way I think you want it, but - your way. You mustn't go. You can't do this to me!
Susan: I see. So it's you that this is being done to. It's not me at all. Not what it means to me. [laughs] I can't do this to you? [smiles] Oh, yes I can.

Share this quote on facebook Reporter 1: What's that?
Reporter 2: Another Venus.
Reporter 1: Twenty-five thousand bucks. That's a lot of money to pay for a dame without a head.

Share this quote on facebook Female reporter: If you could've found out what Rosebud meant, I bet that would've explained everything.
Thompson: No, I don't think so; no. 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. Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything... I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a... piece in a jigsaw puzzle... a missing piece.

Share this quote on facebook It's Terrific!

Share this quote on facebook Everybody's talking about it!

Share this quote on facebook The classic story of power and the press.

Share this quote on facebook I hate him! I love him! He's a scoundrel! He's a saint! He's crazy! He's a genius!

Share this quote on facebook Some called him a hero. Others called him a heel...