Elia Kazan Quotes

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

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

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

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.

The real challenge is not simply to survive. Hell, anyone can do that. It’s to survive as yourself, undiminished.

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.

Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed.

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

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

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

Wonder is our need today, not information.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I was born in Turkey in an extremely oppressive climate at the time of pogroms, massacres, really. An immigrant appreciates the freedom more.

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

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.

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

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

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

Never underestimate the narcissism of a writer.

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

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

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.

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.

I was able to capture on film things the actors didn't even know they were doing.

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

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

A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.

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

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.

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.

Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.

I may be getting old, but not foolish.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 was always a self-conscious person.

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

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

Hey, you must be doin' good, 'cause I never hear from you.