I was an outsider... but I was also sympathetic with people that were struggling to get up, because I struggled to get up.

- Elia Kazan

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

- Elia Kazan

You've got to keep fighting - you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.

- 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

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

- Elia Kazan

What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.

- Elia Kazan

I was even superior to the Communists and when they didn't go along with me, I quit them.

- Elia Kazan

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.

- Elia Kazan

I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.

- Elia Kazan

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

- Elia Kazan

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

- Elia Kazan

Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.

- Elia Kazan

A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.

- Elia Kazan

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

- Elia Kazan

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

- Elia Kazan

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.

- Elia Kazan

You have no idea how fragile an actor's self-worth is.

- Elia Kazan

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.

- Elia Kazan

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

- Elia Kazan

I may be getting old, but not foolish.

- Elia Kazan