Elia Kazan Quotes
-
The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.
-
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 like directors who come on the set and create something that's a little dangerous, difficult or unusual.
-
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.
-
I was very intense. I think it's a privilege to be an actor.
-
I left the theater; I literally left to begin a new life.
-
I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.
-
I've lost many of my best friends... I'm going to satisfy myself now, not the critics, not even my friends.
-
I gave my life to the Group Theatre, because in it I'm building something for myself. What I build, I am.
-
I didn't have that much confidence. Maybe it looks that way. I'm glad it does.
-
I owe Bankhead a gift; she made a director out of me.
-
If you're going to play a cowboy, show up with the horse at the audition.
-
Every picture that is successful has one little miracle in it.
-
I was taken in by what might be called the Hard Times version of the Communists' advertising or recruiting technique.
-
I spoke without fear of contradiction. I simply did not suffer self-doubt.
-
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.
-
I joined the Communist Party late in 1934. I got out a year and a half later.
-
I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.
-
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.
-
I want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity.
-
Some directors, like Stevens [George Stevens], shoot full circle, 360 degrees, and that's what's right for them. I generally shoot at about a seven to one ratio. But part of that is because I've worked on every screenplay, so I'm further along in the visual concept.
-
There was no doubt that there was a vast organization which was making fools of all the liberals in Hollywood and taking their money, that there was a police state among the Left element in Hollywood and Broadway.
-
Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.
-
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.