Elia Kazan Quotes

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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