Talk:Charlie Chaplin

Addition

There is a quote; Chaplin responding to a question of how it feels to be the second funniest comedian responds "Chaplin is not a comedian, he's a fucking ballerina." I heard this from John Lewis' Oregon State University film studies class.

And so what?

There seems to be some sort of a contradiction between the Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton Wikiquote articles.... Chaplin is quoted as saying, "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." Keaton: "Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot." Either one of them heard this quote from the other, thought it was witty, and decided to do a bit of sly paraphrasing and claim the quote for himself...or someone here on Wikiquote misattributed a quote to Chaplin or Keaton. Could someone clear this up for me?

Unsourced

Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable and precise source for any quote on this list please move it to Charlie Chaplin.

• You need Power, only when you want to do something harmful, otherwise Love is enough to get everything done.

• A day without laughter is a day wasted.
  • Variant: The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed.
  • Similar statements have also been attributed to others, including E. E. Cummings

• Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves.

• All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

• Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.

• Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of oneself.
  • Variant: Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.

• I am applauded, because everybody understands me; you are applauded, because nobody understands you.
  • addressed to Albert Einstein

• I am known in parts of the world by people who have never heard of Jesus Christ.

• I consider myself a citizen of the world!
  • On why he had never become a U.S. citizen.

• I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.

• I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.

• I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ was President.
  • After difficulties in being re-admitted to the United States, based on suspicions of communist sympathies.

• I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

• I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.

• I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.

• In the end, everything is a gag.

• Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.

• Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

• Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.

• Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.

• No matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.

• Nothing is permanent in this wicked world — not even our troubles.

• Talkies are spoiling the oldest art in the world — the art of pantomime. They are ruining the great beauty of silence. They are defeating the meaning of the screen. (1929)

• The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

• The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

• There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.

• You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world.