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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.

Elia Kazan

Life

People

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

Machine

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

Elia Kazan

End

World

There is only one thing I respect in so-called Broadway actors... and that is their competitive sense.

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.

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

Elia Kazan

Acting

Actor

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

Elia Kazan

Decision

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

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.

Elia Kazan

Actor

Hell

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

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

Elia Kazan

People

Responsibility

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

Elia Kazan

Artist

Writer

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

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

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.