You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
Elia KazanRead
You have no idea how fragile an actor's self-worth is.
Interpretation
An actor's sense of value is often dependent on external validation, making it fragile.
This quote by Elia Kazan highlights the vulnerability that actors face regarding their self-esteem. Since their worth is frequently measured by public reception and critical acclaim, it creates a precarious situation where external opinions can significantly impact their self-image, revealing a deeper truth about the nature of self-worth in creative professions.
In practice
In discussions about mental health in the entertainment industry, this quote can highlight the demands actors face.
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.
It takes so many years to learn that one is dead.
Life is livable because we know that wherever we go most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions towards us by an almost instinctive network of taboos.
Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.
My soul, be satisfied with flowers, with fruit, with weeds even; but gather them in the one garden you may call your own.
I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.
Each and every one of us has the capacity to be an oppressor. I want to encourage each and everyone of us to interrogate how we might be an oppressor and how we might be able to become liberators for ourselves and for each other.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.