Chaplin Quotes

(Charlie) Chaplin is waiting a long time at a trolley car stop. He`s the first in line of what turns out to be a huge crowd. The trolley finally arrives, he`s the first one on, but then the crowd behind him surges through the door and pushes him right through the door on the other side. And that`s a lot like what Hollywood is like. When you`re a young man, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. is driving. Wally Beery is the conductor, and Chaplin`s got a front row seat. You take your seat, and back behind you is Gary Cooper. He has got his long feet stuck out in front of one of the exit doors, and people keep tripping over him and onto the street. Suddenly a young man named Ty Power gets on. He asks you to move over. You make a picture with Joan Fontaine. You think you do a good job, but she wins the Oscar, and you get nothing. And pretty soon more and more people get on, it`s getting very crowded, and then you decide to get off. When you get off the trolley, you notice that it`s been doing nothing but going around in circles. It doesn`t go anywhere. You see the same things over and over. So you might as well get off.

- Cary Grant

(On Charles Chaplin): The greatest compliment I ever got was from Chaplin. He came up to me and said `I wish I could talk like you on the screen.` I said `I think you`re doing alright.` He had made $50 million by that point. He was the best comedian we ever had.

- Groucho Marx

(on Charles Chaplin) That obstinate, suspicious, egocentric, maddening and lovable genius of a problem child.

- Mary Pickford

I learned how to act by watching Martha Graham dance and I learned how to dance by watching (Charles Chaplin) act."

- Louise Brooks

"I`d like to produce, direct, write, score, and star in a film in exactly the way (Charlie) Chaplin did. I`ll do that before I`m thirty." - in 1985

- Eddie Murphy

(on Judy Garland) In some of her films she showed talent which was very comic and touching. Touching because she played with a bright smile and a great spirit, while the situation was rather dramatic, even tragic perhaps. She had in fact a quality which can only be compared to Charlie Chaplin`s heartbreaking quality: always optimistic, always gay, always inventive, against poverty, against desperate situations -- and that`s when Judy is at her best.

- James Mason

Chaplin has given great pleasure to millions of people, and I hope he returns to Hollywood. Personally, I don`t think he is a Communist, but whatever his political affiliations, they are secondary to the fact that he is a great entertainer. We should not go off the deep end.

- Cary Grant

I watched every single Charlie Chaplin film.

- Chevy Chase

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

The real good comedians, like Chaplin, would make you laugh and a second later, cry.

- Martin Landau

I`m not 40 yet. I wouldn`t even bother comparing myself to Chaplin.

- Robert Downey Jr.

(on Charles Chaplin) Chaplin is all content and little form. Nobody could have shot a film in a more pedestrian way than Chaplin.

- Stanley Kubrick

I used to cry when I watched Chaplin`s films. It was from him that I learned about the role of the underdog. And because I`m also from a poor family, this kind of thing moved me and I found that it also worked for the audience because most of them are like me - ordinary guys.

- Stephen Chow

Chaplin was notoriously strict with his sons and rarely gave them spending money.

- Gene Tierney

(on Judy Garland) In some of her films she showed talent which was very comic and touching. Touching because she played with a bright smile and a great spirit, while the situation was rather dramatic, even tragic perhaps. She had in fact a quality which can only be compared to Charlie Chaplin`s heartbreaking quality: always optimistic, always gay, always inventive, against poverty, against desperate situations -- and that`s when Judy is at her best.

- James Mason

It is the highest honour that the motion picture industry can pay to anybody. I joined people like Chaplin, so of course I`m deeply honoured.

- Peter O'Toole

(On the differences between his and Charles Chaplin`s characters) "Charlie`s tramp was a bum with a bum`s philosophy. Lovable as he was, he would steal if he got the chance. My little fellow was a working man and honest."

- Buster Keaton

(when asked why he abandoned his Lonesome Luke character and that type of character) Charlie (Charles Chaplin) had the market cornered on that. He had it down to a science.

- Harold Lloyd

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 Hallström

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

Charlie Chaplin used his ass better than any other actor. In all his films his ass is practically the protagonist. For a comic, the ass has incredible importance.

- Roberto Benigni

I thought it`d be easy to get into the movies as Charlie Chaplin`s daughter. And I suppose it was. Except I wasn`t much good as an actress - really terrible at the beginning.

- Geraldine Chaplin

My favorite favorites are people like Bunuel, Fellini and Charlie Chaplin.

- Alex Winter

(on Jerry Lewis) At some point he said to himself, "I`m extraordinary, like Charles Chaplin." From then on nobody could tell him anything. He knew it all.

- Dean Martin

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

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.

- Alyson Mike

Every community has its stars, and in the community of Hillel in the former Soviet Union, Chaplin was definitely a star, ... Everybody knew him.

- Angelo Tremblay

Mr. Chaplin asked me if I would like to act in pictures with him. I laughed at the idea, but agreed to try it. I guess he took me because I had nothing to unlearn and he could teach me in his own way. I want to tell you that I suffered untold agonies. Eyes seemed to be everywhere. I was simply frightened to death. But he had unlimited patience in directing me and teaching me.

- Edna Purviance