Quotes By Elia Kazan

Acting... was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?

To be a member of the Communist Party is to have a taste of the police state. It is a diluted taste but is bitter and unforgettable.

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.

I gave my life to the Group Theatre, because in it I'm building something for myself. What I build, I am.

I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed.

I'm going to make a film where not one word is really important. I'm going to make it all action.

I'm small, but I'm neither compliant nor agreeable.

I was taken in by what might be called the Hard Times version of the Communists' advertising or recruiting technique.

I was not what you'd call a first-class actor, but I did all right.

I value peace when it is not bought at the price of fundamental decencies.

I may be getting old, but not foolish.

I think there should be collaboration, but under my thumb.

Anybody who informs on other people is doing something disturbing and even disgusting.

The essence of the stage is concentration and penetration. Of the screen action, movement, sweep.

I was the hero of the young insurgent working class art movement.

Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.

You have to remind people of their own struggles. It's a responsibility.

You have no idea how fragile an actor's self-worth is.

The first thing you should do with an actor is not sign a contract with him. Take him to dinner. And take him for a walk afterwards.

When you know what an actor has, you can reach in and arouse it. If you don't know what he has, you don't know what the hell is going on.

You can't just sit there and do the lines. You have to do something revealing or unusual.

I will say nothing to an actor that cannot be translated into action.

I was both very successful and very left; the living demonstration of how you could be on the left and still be in the gossip columns and be envied for the money you made.

I joined the Communist Party late in 1934. I got out a year and a half later.

There is only one thing I respect in so-called Broadway actors... and that is their competitive sense.

The world was like a huge red carpet out ahead of me to be walked on. And it stretched on and on, no end.

The Communists automatically violated the daily practices of democracy to which I was accustomed.

I don't remember anything anybody said in any Jack Ford picture. Nothing happens except action.

I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.

I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest.