Citizen Kane Quotes: Citizen Kane tells the story of a reporter trying to uncover the secret of a dying businessman’s word before he died.
Citizen Kane Quotes
1- “You can’t buy a bag of peanuts in this town without someone writing a song about you.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
2- “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! Only love me! Don’t expect me to love you” –Susan, ‘Citizen Kane’.
3- “A toast, Jedediah: to Love on my own terms.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
4- “That’s all he ever wanted out of life… was love. That’s the tragedy of Charles Foster Kane. You see, he just didn’t have any to give.” –Leland, ‘Citizen Kane’.
5- “Forty-nine acres of nothing but scenery and statues. I’m lonesome.” –Susan, ‘Citizen Kane’.
6- “I don’t think there’s one word that can describe a mans life.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
7- “It isn’t enough to tell us what a man did. You’ve got to tell us who he was.” –Rawlson, ‘Citizen Kane’.
8- “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.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
9- ” 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.” –Bernstein, ‘Citizen Kane’.
10- “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
11- “Old age. It’s the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don’t look forward to being cured of.” –Bernstein, ‘Citizen Kane’.
12- “How did I find business conditions in Europe? With great difficulty.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
13- “I run a couple of newspapers. What do you do?” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
14- “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.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
15- “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.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
16-“The news goes on for 24 hours a day. ” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
17- “We never lost as much as we made.” –Bernstein, ‘Citizen Kane’.
18- “President’s niece, huh? Before Mr. Kane’s through with her, she’ll be a president’s wife.” –Bernstein, ‘Citizen Kane’.
19- “Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Switzerland… he was thrown out of a lot of colleges. ” –Bernstein, ‘Citizen Kane’.
20- “I think it would be fun to run a newspaper.” –Walter Parks Thatcher, ‘Citizen Kane’.
21- “I always gagged on the silver spoon.” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
22- “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, I don’t think it would have explained everything. 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.” –Thompson, ‘Citizen Kane’.
23- “Rosebud…” –Charles Foster Kane, ‘Citizen Kane’.
24- “Thatcher: Is that how to run a newspaper?
Kane: I don’t know how to run a newspaper, Mr. Thatcher. I just try everything I can think of.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
25- “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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
26- “Charles Foster Kane III: Mother, is Pop governor yet?
Emily: Not yet, Junior.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
27- “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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
28- “Charles Foster Kane: 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.
Charles Foster Kane: Gettys. I’m going to send you to Sing Sing. Sing Sing Gettys. Sing Sing.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
29- “Thatcher: You’re too old to be calling me Mr. Thatcher, Charles.
Charles Foster Kane: You’re too old to be called anything else.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
30- “Emily: He happens to be the president, Charles, not you.
Charles Foster Kane: That’s a mistake that will be corrected one of these days.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
31- “Thompson: He made an awful lot of money.
Bernstein: Well, it’s no trick to make a lot of money… if what you want to do is make a lot of money.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
32- “Charles Foster Kane: This gentleman was saying…
Boss Jim Gettys: I am not a gentleman. I don’t even know what a gentleman is.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
33- “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…” –‘Citizen Kane’.
34- “Jedediah Leland: You still eating?
Charles Foster Kane: I’m still hungry.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
35- ” Bernstein: There’s a lot of statues in Europe you haven’t bought yet.
Charles Foster Kane: You can’t blame me. They’ve been making statues for some two thousand years, and I’ve only been collecting for five.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
36- “Emily: Really Charles, people will think-…
Charles Foster Kane: – -what I tell them to think.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
37- “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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
38- ” [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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
39- ” 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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
40- “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!” –‘Citizen Kane’.
41- ” 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?” –‘Citizen Kane’.
42- “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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
43- “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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
44- “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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
45- “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?” –‘Citizen Kane’.
46- ” 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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
47- “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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
48- “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.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
49- “Charles Foster Kane: Are we going to declare war on Spain, or are we not?
Jed Leland: The Inquirer already has.
Charles Foster Kane: You long-faced, overdressed anarchist.
Jed Leland: I am not overdressed.
Charles Foster Kane: You are too. Mr. Bernstein, look at his necktie.” –‘Citizen Kane’.
50- “Charles Foster Kane: 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 Foster Kane: Yes. “Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I’ll provide the war.”” –‘Citizen Kane’.
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