Elia Quotes & Sayings

I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest. — Elia Kazan

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. — Elia Kazan

The real challenge is not simply to survive. Hell, anyone can do that. It's to survive as yourself, undiminished. — Elia Kazan

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

I have a bit of an obsession with the 1950's and all those actors from Montgomery Clift to James Dean and Anthony Perkins. Just that whole era of Tennessee Williams to Elia Kazan. — Sebastian Stan

'A Face in the Crowd' is Elia Kazan's forgotten movie. — Peyton Reed

My biggest pet peeve is when a girl says, "I'm not into drama." Why are you even mentioning it?! That's dramatic in itself! — Chris D'Elia

Whitney Cummings is one of the hardest working people I know, and she's very motivated. — Chris D'Elia

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

I'm a selfish person, and I'm going onstage to have a good time, and I'd love if you want to be a part of it. So if people don't get it, they're wrong. I think they're wrong, and I think they either don't want to have a good time or they just don't like my style. — Chris D'Elia

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

I'm small, but I'm neither compliant nor agreeable. — Elia Kazan

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

If you're going to play a cowboy, show up with the horse at the audition — Elia Kazan

Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed. — Elia Kazan

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

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

No perfume. Because I want to know how you smell - right off the bat. Don't mask it up. I need to know how you smell because I need to know how we connect. A smell is a big thing. Pheromones. Don't cover that. — Chris D'Elia

I don't want what you see on the screen to just be a brief notion of pleasure but something that lingers. The idea is to have the images revisited. I want it to be something that also enhances the soul. I want the moment of pleasure to produce an attachment. — Elia Suleiman

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

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

I question the value of stars. I think they're overrated. They get too much money, too much praise. — Elia Kazan

Jolly good!" ... King [George VI] exclaimed [after Queen Elizabeth fired the gun at Hitler's photograph]. "You got him right in the n-n-n-naughty bits."... "Good," she said. "That's where I was aiming. — Susan Elia MacNeal

Miller didn't write Death of a Salesman. He released it. It was there inside him, waiting to be turned loose. That's the measure of its merit. — Elia Kazan

Every guy is different, but just prepare to know him in a different way and be OK with it, because the times I've lived with girls, and I've lived with some very sweet girls, I felt bad that they had to live with me. — Chris D'Elia

There aren't many male stars - that's a loose term - like Kirk [Douglas] around. Most of those virile personalities have to keep working, continue the image because they can't do anything else. They don't even read. Their real identity is in making those pictures. They have to keep jumping on horses and hitting somebody on the head with a gun. — Elia Kazan

I know many of the critics and I don't think of them as God-like figures. What can they do to hurt me? Sure, I might be slightly embarrassed for a day, but then you just go your own way. — Elia Kazan

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

Once I started doing stand-up, everything fell into place. That was when I started acting more; I felt like I'd found my place in the business. — Chris D'Elia

I don't really know what people's perception about Palestinians.All art is to better life. We want to create hope and share with others. Create more pleasure, and object to despair. Really it's about that. A space where we can be less aggressed upon. — Elia Suleiman

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

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

Acting ... was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick? — Elia Kazan

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

Elia Kazan understood my problems. He was able to bring out the very best in me. He gave me credit for my intelligence. — Ethel Waters

TV has made us get down to the nub and new films will begin to live up to what the medium can be. — Elia Kazan

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

Palestine is an extremely familiar place to me. Someone like me who lives everywhere in the world cannot be contained. If my hope and ambitions are in the right place, you can judge that in my films. I want to make films that diffuse any local notion. Cinema criss-crosses borders and check points. If the film is good, then it's universal. — Elia Suleiman

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

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

One final thing a director needs: The ability to say 'I am wrong' or 'I was wrong.' Not as easy as it sounds. But in many situations, these 3 words, honestly spoken, will save the day. — Elia Kazan

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

I didn't have the problem of finding myself at 45 on the wrong course - I always wanted to be a film director. — Elia Kazan

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

My heroes are guys like Frank Capra and Elia Kazan and Coen brothers and Terry Gilliam, more so than a lot of bass players at this point in my life. So I've always been an old-film nut and have very much enjoyed doing videos over the years. — Les Claypool

The Time that Remains is a way of interpreting a certain ambience or emotion. These are the stories that my father told me over the course of fifteen or twenty years. I used to listen to him. From the cowardly part of my character, I'm always in fear of not telling the right story. I'm not interested in making epics. — Elia Suleiman

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

Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him. — Elia Kazan

I think there should be collaboration, but under my thumb. — Elia Kazan

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

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

I definitely am a performer, and there are different styles of stand-up; I mean, some people are writers and they get onstage to get jokes out, and that's definitely not what I do. I like to just go up and, if I'm telling a story about someone, I'll play his or her part. — Chris D'Elia

I don't particularly have a good memory. I think history is many times just the text written by the victors. I wanted to counter that aspect. — Elia Suleiman

A face, he believes, is a piece of sculpture that has taken a lifetime to mold, so it tells more than any actor's technique possibly could. I've watched Fellini work, and he did — Elia Kazan

The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up. — Elia Kazan

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

I was always a self-conscious person. — Elia Kazan

For years after I resigned, I was still faithful to their way of thinking. But not in the American Communists. — Elia Kazan

It's difficult, if not impossible, to get away with anything false before the camera. That instrument penetrates the husk of the actor; it reveals what's truly happening - if anything, if nothing. A close-up demands absolute truth. It's a severe and awesome truth — Elia Kazan

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

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

I am not a cosmic orphan. — Elia Kazan

A girl who pays attention is very cool. It's really hard to pay attention to someone. I understand. I get it. I get bored a lot when I'm talking to people, but I try. So I'd like for the girl to try, too. — Chris D'Elia

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

Oberyn wanted vengeance for Elia. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. I have four daughters, I remind you. Your sisters. My Elia is fourteen, almost a woman. Obella is twelve, on the brink of maidenhood. They worship you, as Dorea and Loreza worship them. If you should die, must El and Obella seek vengeance for you, then Dorea and Loree for them? Is that how it goes, round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end?" Ellaria Sand laid her hands on the Mountain's head. "I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick? — George R R Martin

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

The problem is that when you grow absolutely certain that all authorities are corrupt, then that would include the Palestinian authorities as well. — Elia Suleiman

If you pile up too many tomorrows, you'll end up with a lot of empty yesterdays. — Elia Gourgouris

Women, tend to talk more than men, and they do this thing where they say things that can easily be shown. Like, they don't need to do that. — Chris D'Elia

I'm trying to use Palestine as a microcosm of the world, but maybe the world is a microcosm of Palestine. We're living in a moment that has lost attachment to the ideology behind boundaries. — Elia Suleiman

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

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

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out ... I don't believe any more. — Elia Kazan

I may be getting old, but not foolish. — Elia Kazan

People made suggestions, but, hell, I don't actually listen to anybody, I just go my own way. — Elia Kazan

I want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity. — Elia Kazan

I used to spend most of my time straining to be a nice guy so people would like me. — Elia Kazan

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

I didn't have that much confidence. Maybe it looks that way. I'm glad it does. — Elia Kazan

Our relationship was cursed by the fact that we agreed on everything. — Elia Kazan

The only guy who was at all helpful as a producer was Sam Spiegel with On the Waterfront. He's one of the few who even knows what he's doing. — Elia Kazan

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

I was very intense. I think it's a privilege to be an actor. — Elia Kazan

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

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

With kids you can take a chance but casting a guy at 45 is different. You don't discover somebody that age. If an actor hasn't made it by that time he probably has no talent. — Elia Kazan

Are you coming?" Matthew took his hand. "Not yet, but I hope we're headed that way." Silas rolled his eyes. "That's a terrible joke." "I know. You'll have to punish me for it. — Elia Winters

I don't think there should be a Palestinian state because I don't believe in states. — Elia Suleiman

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

Never underestimate the narcissism of a writer. — Elia Kazan

I left the theater; I literally left to begin a new life. — Elia Kazan

The movie I've watched a million times is 'A Face in the Crowd,' directed by Elia Kazan, starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. I first saw this movie, I guess I was in my early 20s. I'd never heard of it, and somebody told me about it, and I watched it and was just completely jaw-droppingly shocked at how current it was. — Callie Khouri

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

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

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

Why write? Life is a cage of empty words. — Miriam Elia

I try to use fiction in order to reduce the potentiality of something being true. We produce our own memories so I'm not sure of truth. — Elia Suleiman

I'm not in the business of saying just one thing about just one place. If you only see Palestine in my films, then I've failed because then I'm just a provincial filmmaker. — Elia Suleiman

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