Jennie Appleton: Eben... I want always just to sit and watch you paint.
Eben Adams: Now that I've found the perfect model, I'll paint her again and again.
Jennie Appleton: No, I-I didn't mean that... I mean I want you to paint all the beautiful things in the world.
Eben Adams: [smiles, holds her tight] You're the most beautiful thing in the world.


--Joseph Cotten (as Eben Adams) in Portrait of Jennie

Pearl Chavez: And you'll forget about... about tonight, won't you? You'll forget it?
Jesse McCanles: No, I don't think I'll forget. I don't think I'll ever be able to. I shouldn't have told you the way I felt. It wasn't fair. There I go again, trying to be fair.


--Joseph Cotten (as Jesse McCanles) in Duel in the Sun

Sen. Jackson McCanles: So that's where you stand!
Jesse McCanles: I think I'd rather be on the side of the victims than of the murderers.


--Joseph Cotten (as Jesse McCanles) in Duel in the Sun

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.


--Joseph Cotten (as ) in Citizen Kane

Reporter: [at beginning of news reel on Charles Foster Kane's death] In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree.


--Joseph Cotten (as ) in Citizen Kane

Senator Hugh B. Emmett: Sergeant, we would like to get the point of view of the soldiers about several things.
Zachary Morgan: Soldiers?
Senator Hugh B. Emmett: Yes. We would like to know from you what the soldier thinks.
Zachary Morgan: Thinks about what?
Senator Hugh B. Emmett: Thinks about political issues.
Zachary Morgan: Senator, I don't know. What gives you the idea that just because a fellow puts on a soldier suit he thinks any differently from anybody else?
[looking around at the soldiers around him]
Zachary Morgan: What does the soldier think? I tell you, last time some of us voted for Roosevelt, and some of us didn't. Some of us weren't old enough to vote. Some soldiers think labor's got a right to strike, and some soldiers think labor's got no rights at all. A lot of soldiers got one idea about what should happen after war, a lot of soldiers have other ideas. Me? I haven't the slightest notion what a lot of soldiers think. Senator, thanks for the cigar.


--Joseph Cotten (as Zachary Morgan) in I'll Be Seeing You

[First line, voiceover as we watch him at the base of the Falls]
George Loomis: Why should the Falls drag me down here at 5 o'clock in the morning? To show me how big they are and how small I am? To remind me they can get along without any help? All right, so they've proved it. But why not? They've had ten thousand years to get independent. What's so wonderful about that? I suppose I could too, only it might take a little more time.


--Joseph Cotten (as ) in Niagara

[first lines]
Whitney 'Cam' Cameron: Where is Polly Cameron's room?


--Joseph Cotten (as Whitney 'Cam' Cameron) in A Blueprint for Murder

[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.


--Joseph Cotten (as Leland) in Citizen Kane

Whitney 'Cam' Cameron: [narrating] On October 10th 1952, Lynne Cameron was convicted of murder in the first degree. Her sentence: life imprisonment. And so to the names of Madeleine Smith, Florence Maybrick, Lydia Trueblood, and all those other young, beautiful, but evil poison murderers was added that of Lynne Cameron.


--Joseph Cotten (as Whitney 'Cam' Cameron) in A Blueprint for Murder