Elia Kazan Quotes

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

Acting, I found, was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?

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

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

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

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

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

You have no idea how fragile an actor's self-worth is.

Criticism- a big bite out of someone's back.

I'm small, but I'm neither compliant nor agreeable.

If you're going to play a cowboy, show up with the horse at the audition

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

You have to remind people of their own struggles. It's a responsibility.

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.

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

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

TV has made us get down to the nub and new films will begin to live up to what the medium can be.

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

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

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.

I left the theater; I literally left to begin a new life.

I'm very pro-America, but I feel it necessary to keep in touch with Europe to maintain a perspective.

With kids you can take a chance but casting a guy at 45 is different. You don't discover somebody that age. If an actor hasn't made it by that time he probably has no talent.

I won't go back to the theater. I like some of the things they're doing but it's different now, not something I could do. I'll go on making films the rest of my life.

I didn't have the problem of finding myself at 45 on the wrong course - I always wanted to be a film director.

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

I know many of the critics and I don't think of them as God-like figures. What can they do to hurt me? Sure, I might be slightly embarrassed for a day, but then you just go your own way.

People made suggestions, but, hell, I don't actually listen to anybody, I just go my own way.

Truth gets buried, that's why people write autobiographies.

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

The thing with films is that you have to make something that will get people out of their houses, away from the TV set. You must touch people, say something. Otherwise, they'll stay at home.

The camera is more than a recorder, it's a microscope. It penetrates, it goes into people and you see their most private and concealed thoughts.

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

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