Quotes By Elia Kazan

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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