Chaplin quotes:

Send

I'm not 40 yet. I wouldn't even bother comparing myself to Chaplin. -- Robert Downey, Jr.
Comedy comes from a place of hurt. Charlie Chaplin was starving and broke in London, and that's where he got his character 'the tramp' from. It's a bad situation that he transformed into comedic one. -- Chris Tucker
Well, you cannot think of cinema now, and you cannot think of cinema in the UK and not place Chaplin in the most extraordinary elevated context, if there can be such a thing, in that he was a genius, he was unique. -- Richard Attenborough
I don't want to compare myself to him - I don't want people to see me as this great genius - but when I see Charlie Chaplin's movies there is a combination of drama, naivety and social meaning that I can see in myself, at a different level. -- Michel Gondry
The real good comedians, like Chaplin, would make you laugh and a second later, cry -- Martin Landau
You won't find another Chaplin, you won't find another Keaton, because the school is closed. -- Jacques Tati
I grew up on Harold Lloyd, Charles Chaplin, and Buster Keaton, and those were the ones who inspired me. -- Navid Negahban
I learned to act by watching Martha Graham dance, and I learned to dance by watching Charlie Chaplin act. -- Louise Brooks
Charlie Chaplin and I would have a friendly contest: Who could do the feature film with the least subtitles? -- Buster Keaton
As is the case with all original creators, Charles Chaplin's working life was an amalgam of arrogant self-confidence and deflating self-doubt. -- Garson Kanin
It didn't matter that Charlie Chaplin may not have been a great director or a great anything else. He made great movies. -- Jon Landau
I know of only six genuine comic geniuses in movie history; Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Groucho Marx & Harpo Marx, Peter Sellers, and W.C. Fields. -- Woody Allen
For some of the large indignities of life, the best remedy is direct action. For the small indignities, the best remedy is a Charlie Chaplin movie. The hard part is knowing the difference. -- Carol Tavris
I think there's plenty of room, even in the most serious activist circles, for humor. Humor can be very effective both to inspire, and as a weapon. Just ask Frank Zappa and Charlie Chaplin. -- Jello Biafra
Charlie Chaplin said something to the effect that humor is an act of defiance, that we must laugh in the face of our helplessness in the forces of nature or go insane. And where is he now? Dead. -- Doug Stanhope
Chaplin and Keaton are still the best. They know that there is nothing more serious than laughter, an art demanding infinite work, and that as long as the world revolves, making others laugh is the most splendid of activities. -- Eduardo Galeano
Einstein - the greatest Jew since Jesus. I have no doubt that Einstein's name will still be remembered and revered when Lloyd George, Foch and William Hohenzollern share with Charlie Chaplin that ineluctable oblivion which awaits the uncreative mind. -- John B. S. Haldane
When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I'd seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young. -- Dick Van Dyke
Working with Chaplin was very amusing and strange. His films are so funny, but working with him, I found him to be a very serious man. Whereas the films of Hitchcock are macabre, he could be a very funny man to work with, always telling jokes and holding court. Of course, when I worked with Charlie he was getting older. -- Tippi Hedren
Chaplin is no businessman -- Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
I watched every single Charlie Chaplin film. -- Chevy Chase
I grew up watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. -- Pierre Niney
I think more like Charlie Chaplin than like Jennifer Anniston. -- Emily Haines
My favorite favorites are people like Bunuel, Fellini and Charlie Chaplin. -- Alex Winter
When you speak of silent movies, everyone thinks of Charlie Chaplin first. -- Michel Hazanavicius
I don't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with Charles Chaplin. -- Stan Laurel
Chaplin was notoriously strict with his sons and rarely gave them spending money. -- Gene Tierney
I never met who I really wanted to meet, and that was Charlie Chaplin. -- Norman Lear
I think I'm going to pull a Charlie Chaplin and have kids when I'm 60. -- Bronson Pinchot
Charlie Chaplin's genius was in comedy. He has no sense of humor, particularly about himself. -- Lita Grey
Chaplin is no business man - all he knows is that he can't take anything less. -- Samuel Goldwyn
If people don't sit at Chaplin's feet, he goes out and stands where they are sitting. -- Herman J. Mankiewicz
I was always a big fan of Charlie Chaplin movies. I love 'The Great Dictator' and 'City Lights.' -- Jack Reynor
In my life, I wanted to meet certain people. I never met Charlie Chaplin, but I met Werner Herzog. -- Philippe Petit
Everyone seems to have this awareness of Charlie Chaplin because he was a really good businessman while Buster Keaton wasn't. -- French Stewart
Bicycle Thief is a triumphant discovery of the fundamentals of cinema, and De Sica has openly acknowledged his debt to Chaplin. -- Satyajit Ray
There was a period of time when they estimated the two biggest stars in Hollywood were Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse. -- John Lasseter
When you see Charlie Chaplin, he stays funny. He doesn't become drama, and so what really seems to endure is comedy. -- Leslie Nielsen
Charlie Chaplin, too, through spectacle, contraband certain ideas, put them through, ideas that even today are not being expressed by great statesmen and politicians. -- Sergio Leone
I love 'Chaplin'; I mean I really love 'Chaplin.' I just think there's a grace and an elegance that's almost never been matched. -- Gary Ross
When Chaplin found a voice to say what was on his mind, he was like a child of eight writing lyrics for Beethoven's Ninth. -- Billy Wilder
I'd like to produce, direct, write, score, and star in a film in exactly the way Chaplin did. I'll do that before I'm thirty. -- Eddie Murphy
If there is an auteur who influenced me - and there is only one - that is Charlie Chaplin. And he never won an Oscar. -- Sergio Leone
I didn't even know what a film director was. To me, Charlie Chaplin was a goofy clown, and John Ford - what? Never heard of him. -- Lloyd Kaufman
I have some favorites. I love Chaplin; I mean I really love Chaplin. I just think there's a grace and an elegance that's almost never been matched. -- Gary Ross
I read every book about Buster Keaton and Chaplin to see how they worked - it's all about dedication, tunnel vision, pursuit of perfection, getting the gag right. -- Paul Merton
Shakespeare wrote great plays that we're still watching all these years later. Charlie Chaplin made great comedies and they are still as funny today as they ever were. -- Leonard Maltin
I wanted to live where I could pop to the bar that Humphrey Bogart took Lauren Bacall to, or the little restaurant where Charlie Chaplin had a booth. -- Ashley Jensen
He's my favorite! He wrote and produced, and starred in and cast all of his movies! Can you imagine? I get really excited when I talk about Charlie Chaplin. -- Emma Stone
If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin. -- Marguerite Young
I'm not Charlie Chaplin and will never, ever claim to be. But when I become the 'Tramp,' I can feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck. -- Rob McClure
Chaplin made me laugh and cry without saying a word. I had an instinct. I was touched by the soul of Chaplin - Mime is not an imitator but a creator. -- Marcel Marceau
There's not one major greatest influence on my career. It would be film and great artists and great imagineers - Jim Henson, Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin, people who understand the joy of the imagination. -- Zac Posen
Comedy is a universal language. I grew up watching Nagesh, Surilirajan, Thenga Srinivasan and S.V. Shekhar's comedies. And, of course, Charlie Chaplin! These artists are so blessed: they can make other people happy. -- A. R. Rahman
Charles Chaplin makes a million dollars a year out of a funny, shuffling walk and a pair of baggy trousers, because he does "something different." Take the hint and "individualize" yourself with some distinctive idea. -- Napoleon Hill
A certain type of critic doesn't really want French movies to be visual. They think movies started from books and they forgot this part of moviemaking, like Chaplin and Buster Keaton, which I didn't forget. -- Audrey Tautou
I discovered the 7th art at home when I was kid, through Charlie Chaplin's movies and those of my father who shot documentaries. He was my biggest influence. So I took his camera and started shooting. -- Lasse Hallstrom
The end of 'City Lights' makes me cry every time I see it - when Charlie Chaplin walks by the shop window and the once-blind girl brings him a flower and pins it to his lapel. -- Emma Stone
I think physical comedy is an amazing asset because it tells a story that's more universal than just language and dialogue. I grew up watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. They're very powerful figures in my life. -- Josh Gad
The real achievement of Woody Allen was that he was making movies that felt very personal, and for a whole group of people, it spoke to them. Then he became an archetype, like Groucho Marx or Chaplin. -- Noah Baumbach
Spin City' was a really wonderful time for me. I made friends for life on that show. I made friends with Richard Kind, Michael Boatman, Barry Bostwick, Sandy Chaplin. We're all close. It was a really wonderful time. -- Alan Ruck
I would say that Pixar is doing for animation what Chaplin did for film, infusing it with heart and characters that you care about and stories that you lose yourself in. They are similar revolutionaries and changing a medium. -- Rob McClure
I'm in the back of a limousine with Charlie Chaplin and it's 1928. Charlie is beautiful; his body language seems to skip, and reel and rhyme, heartbreaking and witty at the same time. It seems to promise a better world." -- Geoff Ryman
I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked. -- Mikhail Baryshnikov
I'm in the back of a limousine with Charlie Chaplin and it's 1928. Charlie is beautiful; his body language seems to skip, and reel and rhyme, heartbreaking and witty at the same time. It seems to promise a better world. -- Geoff Ryman
I grew up watching a lot of old movies, so getting to ask about making movies in the '70s and people he was friends with, like Orson Welles, Lillian Hellman and Charlie Chaplin, and hearing a first-person account was pretty incredible. -- Alden Ehrenreich
In my day, the only people who achieved real independence were my father, Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin, who, with D. W. Griffith, formed United Artists. Other than that, everybody belonged to the big studios. They had no say in their own careers. -- Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
I grew up and I was weaned on the Marx Brothers. They were sort of my all-time favorite. My parents showed me their movies when I was very young. And as I got older, I became a Charlie Chaplin fan, and I love Buster Keaton. -- Joshua Malina
My initial introduction to him was - this is a funny story... My Aunt Marian, my entire life growing up, told me that I looked like Charlie Chaplin. That didn't really resonate with me when I was younger - I hadn't seen a lot of his films. -- Rob McClure
I thought if I could do stand-up comedy well enough, I could parlay it back into films - like Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen did. They merged principles of comedy and drama together, and that's what my first film really was, a stab at that kind of comedy. -- Mike Birbiglia
Making people laugh is one of the highest achievements you can have. And when you can make someone laugh and cry, alternatively, as Chaplin does - now that's the highest of all personal achievements. I don't know that I aim for it, but I recognize it as the supreme goal. -- Elliott Erwitt
There are people that I am in love with, totally in love with them. I would die for them. I love Michelangelo. I love Charlie Chaplin with all my heart. I love Walt Disney. These are the people I am nuts over. These are my people. I love the great ones. -- Michael Jackson
Charlie Chaplin is the greatest artist of the 20th century. He takes me from laughter to tears in seconds. And he was one of the very first funny men. It's like the original violins were made in Cremona and there's never been any better since. Sometimes the best come right off the bat. -- Emo Philips
We felt that the public, and especially the children, like animals that are cute and little. I think we are rather indebted to Charlie Chaplin for the idea. We wanted something appealing, and we thought of a tiny bit of a mouse that would have something of the wistfulness of Chaplin- a little fellow trying to do the best he could. -- Walt Disney
American culture has a lot of great moustaches in its history. Mark Twain had a great moustache, Charlie Chaplin, Ben Turpin ... but Zappa, he's got the best moustache in American history. Got the moustache, right, and he's got that little thing on his chin, I think it's called an imperial, that is, like, the coolest thing. That's like one of the great icons of the twentieth century. -- Matt Groening
When people say 'Charlie Chaplin' I still think now of the guy in the moustache and bowler hat and funny walk - I don't think of an old man who was my grandfather. -- Oona Chaplin
As I don't know what life would be like without my Chaplin connections, I work with them. I'm just really happy it's a family I can be proud of; it's not as if I'm related to some Z-list celebrity. -- Oona Chaplin
My mother doesn't have much of a social life with other A-list people. Which in a way I'm very grateful for, because if I do make something of my career I will be able to say it wasn't because I was a Chaplin. -- Oona Chaplin
My idol growing up was Charlie Chaplin. I was obsessed with him. I mean, while other kids were watching Jim Carrey and the likes in the '90s, I was watching Charlie Chaplin films, because I was a bit of a geek. I became obsessed with this idea of physical comedy. -- Josh Gad
Bob Dylan may be the Charlie Chaplin of rock n' roll. Both men are regarded as geniuses by their entire audience. Both were proclaimed revolutionaries for their early work and subjected to exhaustive attack when later works were thought to be inferior. Both developed their art without so much as a nodding glance toward their peers. -- Jon Landau
People try to put ownership on things: 'That's mine, that's my joke.' No such thing. Like if you tripped or stumbled and people go, 'Oh, that's Charlie Chaplin.' You know what I mean? You can't own a joke. You can be the guy that tells it the best, but you can't own a joke. Nowhere can you own a laugh. -- Tommy Chong

Send