The first thing you should do with an actor is not sign a contract with him. Take him to dinner. And take him for a walk afterwards.

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

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

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.

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.

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

I said to Tennessee, this thing is becoming the Marlon Brando show.

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

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

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

I may be getting old, but not foolish.

I gave my life to the Group Theatre, because in it I'm building something for myself. What I build, I am.

I hate the Communists and have for many years and don't feel right about giving up my career to defend them. I will give up my film career if it is in the interests of defending something I believe in, but not this.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I will say nothing to an actor that cannot be translated into action.

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

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

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

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.

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

I was always a self-conscious person.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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