Citizen Kane quotes

View Quote 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.

View Quote [to Jedediah Leland] Mr. Kane is finishing the review you started - he's writing a bad notice. I guess that'll show you.

View Quote Note: ranked #17 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

View Quote 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.

View Quote 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...

View Quote [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? [odd smile] Oh, yes I can.

View Quote Emily: He happens to be the president, Charles, not you.
Charles: That's a mistake that will be corrected one of these days.

View Quote Charles: Hello, Jedediah.
Leland: Hello, Charlie. I didn't know we were speaking...
Charles: Sure, we're speaking, Jedediah: you're fired.

View Quote I always gagged on that silver spoon.

View Quote Emily: Really Charles, people will think-...
Charles: - -what I tell them to think.

View Quote I don't think there's one word that can describe a mans life.

View Quote President's niece, huh? Before Mr. Kane's through with her, she'll be a president's wife.

View Quote Walter Parks Thatcher: You're too old to be calling me Mr. Thatcher, Charles.
Charles: You're too old to be called anything else.

View Quote 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.

View Quote 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.