Elia Kazan

I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between…

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

To be a member of the Communist Party is to have a taste of the police state. It is a diluted taste…

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

The thing about Brando was that I'd make these directions, and he'd walk away. He'd heard enough... to get the machine going.

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

I would rather do what I did than crawl in front of a ritualistic Left and lie the way those other comrades…

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

“I am not a cosmic orphan.”

— Elia Kazan

Wonder is our need today, not information.

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan

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

— Elia Kazan