Quotes from Elia Kazan

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

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

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

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

The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.

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.

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

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

You can't just sit there and do the lines. You have to do something revealing or unusual.

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

I'm going to make a film where not one word is really important. I'm going to make it all action.

I value peace when it is not bought at the price of fundamental decencies.

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

There was no doubt that there was a vast organization which was making fools of all the liberals in Hollywood and taking their money, that there was a police state among the Left element in Hollywood and Broadway.

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

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

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

The Communists automatically violated the daily practices of democracy to which I was accustomed.

I spoke without fear of contradiction. I simply did not suffer self-doubt.

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

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