Quotes By Elia Kazan

Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.

I said to Tennessee, this thing is becoming the Marlon Brando show.

The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.

Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.

The physical life of the scene is determined by whether the set squeezes people together or whether the set has an escape place in it.

Every picture that is successful has one little miracle in it.

I owe Bankhead a gift; she made a director out of me.

Our relationship was cursed by the fact that we agreed on everything.

I like directors who come on the set and create something that's a little dangerous, difficult or unusual.

The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up.

I question the value of stars. I think they're overrated. They get too much money, too much praise.

I was even superior to the Communists and when they didn't go along with me, I quit them.

For years after I resigned, I was still faithful to their way of thinking. But not in the American Communists.

I would rather do what I did than crawl in front of a ritualistic Left and lie the way those other comrades did betray my own soul.

What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.

I've lost many of my best friends... I'm going to satisfy myself now, not the critics, not even my friends.

I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.

I was very intense. I think it's a privilege to be an actor.

I was the true future. I understood Communism better than they did.

I truly believe that all power corrupts. Such is probably the thinking behind every political film ever made in Hollywood.

I want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity.

Miller didn't write Death of a Salesman. He released it. It was there inside him, waiting to be turned loose. That's the measure of its merit.

I didn't have that much confidence. Maybe it looks that way. I'm glad it does.

I spoke without fear of contradiction. I simply did not suffer self-doubt.

A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people.

The motion pictures I have made and the plays I have chosen to direct represent my convictions.

I used to spend most of my time straining to be a nice guy so people would like me.

There was no doubt that there was a vast organization which was making fools of all the liberals in Hollywood and taking their money, that there was a police state among the Left element in Hollywood and Broadway.

Very often the Group actor is a critic when he's acting and an actor when he's criticizing.

The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.