1.
I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.
Elia Kazan
2.
The world was like a huge red carpet out ahead of me to be walked on. And it stretched on and on, no end.
Elia Kazan
3.
What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.
Elia Kazan
4.
I've come to believe that everything worth achieving is beyond one's capacity - or seems so at first. The thing is to persist, not back off, fight your fight, pay your dues, and carry on. Effort is all; continue and you may get there despite everything.
Elia Kazan
5.
The real challenge is not simply to survive. Hell, anyone can do that. It’s to survive as yourself, undiminished.
Elia Kazan
6.
Look for the contradictions in every character, especially in your heroes and villains. No one should be what they first seem to be. Surprise the audience.
Elia Kazan
7.
Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed.
Elia Kazan
8.
Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.
Elia Kazan
9.
I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.
Elia Kazan
10.
You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
Elia Kazan
11.
Wonder is our need today, not information.
Elia Kazan
12.
The motion pictures I have made and the plays I have chosen to direct represent my convictions.
Elia Kazan
13.
The essence of the stage is concentration and penetration. Of the screen action, movement, sweep.
Elia Kazan
14.
I used to spend most of my time straining to be a nice guy so people would like me.
Elia Kazan
15.
A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people.
Elia Kazan
16.
I gave my life to the Group Theatre, because in it I'm building something for myself. What I build, I am.
Elia Kazan
17.
I was an outsider... but I was also sympathetic with people that were struggling to get up, because I struggled to get up.
Elia Kazan
18.
One final thing a director needs: The ability to say 'I am wrong' or 'I was wrong.' Not as easy as it sounds. But in many situations, these 3 words, honestly spoken, will save the day.
Elia Kazan
19.
Every picture that is successful has one little miracle in it.
Elia Kazan
20.
I was born in Turkey in an extremely oppressive climate at the time of pogroms, massacres, really. An immigrant appreciates the freedom more.
Elia Kazan
21.
I value peace, too, when it is not bought at the price of fundamental decencies.
Elia Kazan
22.
I hate the Communists and have for many years and don't feel right about giving up my career to defend them. I will give up my film career if it is in the interests of defending something I believe in, but not this.
Elia Kazan
23.
I joined the Communist Party late in the summer of 1934. I got out a year and a half later.
Elia Kazan
24.
I truly believe that all power corrupts. Such is probably the thinking behind every political film ever made in Hollywood.
Elia Kazan
25.
I like directors who come on the set and create something that's a little dangerous, difficult or unusual.
Elia Kazan
26.
Never underestimate the narcissism of a writer.
Elia Kazan
27.
Anybody who informs on other people is doing something disturbing and even disgusting.
Elia Kazan
28.
I said to Tennessee, this thing is becoming the Marlon Brando show.
Elia Kazan
29.
The only guy who was at all helpful as a producer was Sam Spiegel with On the Waterfront. He's one of the few who even knows what he's doing.
Elia Kazan
30.
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.
Elia Kazan
31.
I was able to capture on film things the actors didn't even know they were doing.
Elia Kazan
32.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to get away with anything false before the camera. That instrument penetrates the husk of the actor; it reveals what's truly happening - if anything, if nothing. A close-up demands absolute truth. It's a severe and awesome truth
Elia Kazan
33.
The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.
Elia Kazan
34.
A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.
Elia Kazan
35.
The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.
Elia Kazan
36.
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.
Elia Kazan
37.
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.
Elia Kazan
38.
Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.
Elia Kazan
39.
I may be getting old, but not foolish.
Elia Kazan
40.
For years after I resigned, I was still faithful to their way of thinking. But not in the American Communists.
Elia Kazan
41.
I want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity.
Elia Kazan
42.
I owe Bankhead a gift; she made a director out of me.
Elia Kazan
43.
I was the true future. I understood Communism better than they did.
Elia Kazan
44.
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.
Elia Kazan
45.
The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up.
Elia Kazan
46.
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.
Elia Kazan
47.
I was always a self-conscious person.
Elia Kazan
48.
I was very intense. I think it's a privilege to be an actor.
Elia Kazan
49.
I was the hero of the young insurgent working class art movement.
Elia Kazan
50.
Hey, you must be doin' good, 'cause I never hear from you.
Elia Kazan
