Elia Kazan Quotes

I don't really care what the man on the street thinks. I never did anything to please him in the first place, and I'm not going to start now.

I always wanted to be different and do things differently. I was a pain in the neck. I was challenging everything you wanted me to do and challenging people in school.

When I started writing seriously, I made the major discovery of my life - that I am right and everybody else is wrong if they disagree with me. What a great thing to learn: Don't listen to anyone else, and always go your own way.

You can only accomplish your object in life by complete disregard of the opinions of other people.

I don't do what you people want. I Do What I Want!

Wanted: a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man who has the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say 'No,' though all the world say 'Yes.'

I'm quite contrary. If people agree on something, I tend to gravitate the other way by my nature. I don't like to be told what to do. I think it goes back to school. I like to do things I want to do and I really don't like doing what I don't want to do.

I've always had a healthy disregard for authority - it allows me to do my job as a portrait photographer and not as someone who is playing the power game.

I'm bad at doing what I'm told. I'm a born free thinker.

A damn independent boy; independent as a hog on ice.

I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.

I don't care what other people think.

I am definitely an individual.

I did everything. I ran my life exactly as I wanted to, all the time. I never listened to anybody. I'm pig-headed.

I always feel like I want to do my career my own way. I never follow anybody's path, what they've done.

I'm a gypsy: no education, no schooling, nothing. I don't care what people think of me. I don't care about being a hero, a role model, a champion.

There will always be some people who think for themselves, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable estimate of their own value and of the need for every man to think for himself.

I was born a leader, never a follower. I never felt peer pressure. If the group goes left, I go right.

I'm just trying to show people that I ain't gotta ride off no movement. I can ride off myself.

I don't really care what other people think.

I'm talented and I don't listen to people. I have a mind of my own.

I could never understand the herd mentality. I have always fought to do things my way and have stuck to that.

I chose my own path because that was the only way.

I ain't got nothing to prove to nobody.

It was just, I was always contrarian. I was always, you know, 'We want to do this with you,' 'No, I want to do that.' In so many things, I wanted to do things my way.