Top 67 Quotes by Elia Kazan

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

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

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

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

The essence of the stage is concentration and penetration. Of the screen action, movement, sweep.

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.

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

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

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