Top 30 Elia Kazan Quotes

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was an outsider… but I was also sympathetic with people that were struggling to get up, because I struggled to get up.

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

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

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

I was always a self-conscious person.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

You’ve got to keep fighting – you’ve got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.