You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
Elia KazanRead
I owe Bankhead a gift; she made a director out of me.
Interpretation
The quote expresses gratitude towards someone who played a significant role in the speaker's artistic development.
In this quote, Elia Kazan acknowledges the vital influence of Bankhead in his journey as a director. It suggests that the guidance or impact of one person can dramatically shape an individual's career and creative expression, highlighting the importance of mentorship and inspiration in the arts.
In practice
In a speech about your artistic journey at a film festival.
You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
Acting... was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?
I've come to believe that everything worth achieving is beyond one's capacity - or seems so at first. The thing is to persist, not back off, fight your fight, pay your dues, and carry on. Effort is all; continue and you may get there despite everything.
A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.
To be a member of the Communist Party is to have a taste of the police state. It is a diluted taste but it is bitter and unforgettable.
I've lost many of my best friends... I'm going to satisfy myself now, not the critics, not even my friends.
The very paradigm of revolution, of right versus wrong, good versus bad, is a relic with no bearing on the present. Yet artists, exhibitions, and curators valorize the sixties. People who wrote about these artists 30 years ago still write about them in the same ways, often for the same magazines.
But art is not simply works of art; it is the spirit that knows Beauty, that has music in its soul and the color of sunsets in its headkerchiefs; that can dance on a flaming world and make the world dance, too.
Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
In the late '70s I started to search for the perfect sound - whatever that might be, before that I was mainly interested in drugs, insanity and the rock'n'roll lifestyle.
When I'm working, I'm so narrowly focused on sound, language, rhythm, flow, that I rarely feel the emotion of the text. It's only after - long after - I've finished a piece that I can experience in any way its emotional charge.
The fault of bad taste is usually in over-dressing. Quality not effect, is the standard to seek for.
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