"I was very intense. I think it's a privilege to be an actor."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I may be getting old, but not foolish."

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

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

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

"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."

"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 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."

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

"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 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."

"Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him."

"I've lost many of my best friends... I'm going to satisfy myself now, not the critics, not even my friends."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I was not what you'd call a first-class actor, but I did all right."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people."

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

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

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