Quotes for
Charles Foster Kane (Character)
from Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane (1941)

[first lines]
Charles Foster Kane: Rosebud.

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

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

Charles Foster Kane: I always gagged on the silver spoon.

Emily: Really Charles, people will think-...
Charles Foster Kane: - -what I tell them to think.

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.

Charles Foster Kane: The news goes on for 24 hours a day.

Charles Foster Kane: 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.

Jedediah Leland: You still eating?
Charles Foster Kane: I'm still hungry.

Charles Foster Kane: 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.

Reporter: Mr. Kane, how did you find business conditions in Europe?
Charles Foster Kane: How did I find business conditions in Europe? With great difficulty.

Charles Foster Kane: I run a couple of newspapers. What do you do?

Charles Foster Kane: This gentleman was saying...
Boss Jim Gettys: I am not a gentleman. I don't even know what a gentleman is.

Charles Foster Kane: Don't believe everything you hear on the radio.

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.

Thatcher: You're too old to be calling me Mr. Thatcher, Charles.
Charles Foster Kane: You're too old to be called anything else.

Charles Foster Kane: 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: 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."

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.

Charles Foster Kane: I don't think there's one word that can describe a mans life.

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!
[Screams louder]
Charles Foster Kane: Gettys! I'm going to send you to Sing Sing! Sing Sing, Gettys! Sing Sing!

[Susan is leaving Kane]
Kane: [pleading] Don't go, Susan. You mustn't go. You can't do this to me.
Susan: I see. 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.
[laughs]
Susan: I can't do this to you?
[odd smile]
Susan: Oh, yes I can.

Charles Foster Kane: A toast, Jedediah: to Love on my own terms.

Charles Foster Kane: You can't buy a bag of peanuts in this town without someone writing a song about you.

Charles Foster Kane: [His answer to being blackmailed] There's only one person in the world who's going to decide what I'm going to do and that's me...

Susan: I don't know many people.
Charles Foster Kane: I know too many people. I guess we're both lonely.

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