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

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 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.

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

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.

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.