Top 55 Chaplin Quotes

My parents loved comedies, so we saw Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Ritz Brothers, and the Marx Brothers. I wanted to be one of them.

I think I’m going to pull a Charlie Chaplin and have kids when I’m 60.

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.

I can consciously say I like squashing things because I saw ‘Tom and Jerry‘ films or Charlie Chaplin in ‘Modern Times.’ That’s true.

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.

I don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with Charles Chaplin.

I watched every single Charlie Chaplin film.

Kamal Haasan got inspired by his brief appearance in a role similar to Charlie Chaplin in ‘Punnagai Mannan’ and developed that into a full-fledged character in ‘Apoorva Sagodharargal.’

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.

We used Chaplin’s formula in all my pictures. Make ’em laugh for five and a half reels, and then make ’em cry in the last half reel. But give ’em a chance to dry their eyes before the lights come up.

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.

I just bought a building in Los Angeles – on Sunset Boulevard. It’s a building that was owned by Charlie Chaplin. It’s going to be a sound- stage for videos; for full-scale productions.

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.

In my life, I wanted to meet certain people. I never met Charlie Chaplin, but I met Werner Herzog.

Working with Chaplin was a marvelous experience.

I have been following Charlie Chaplin since my childhood days. He is an inspiration to everyone.

I’ve always loved the Marx brothers and Charlie 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.

If people don’t sit at Chaplin’s feet, he goes out and stands where they are sitting.

Charlie Chaplin was known to be an acrimonious person. Not that I compare myself to him but I am quite brusque, too.

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

I grew up on Harold Lloyd, Charles Chaplin, and Buster Keaton, and those were the ones who inspired me.

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

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.

I’ve studied Charlie Chaplin for years. I’ve studied Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, all of them. I don’t play around. This is not a game.

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.

There was a period of time when they estimated the two biggest stars in Hollywood were Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse.

When I was making the ‘Kid’ my salary was $75 a week. Chaplin gave me a $5,000 bonus at the end of the picture.

I liked the America of Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton – it was all a dream, of course, but a very alluring dream for a young man from Canton.

‘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.

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.

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.

It didn’t matter that Charlie Chaplin may not have been a great director or a great anything else. He made great movies.

I was always a big fan of Charlie Chaplin movies. I love ‘The Great Dictator‘ and ‘City Lights.’

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.

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.

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.

I was only to see Mr. Chaplin once after ‘The Kid.’ A great artist, one of the greatest, but I’m afraid I don’t think very much of him as a man. Running away from the country that gave him everything and denouncing the country in addition is something you simply can’t make any allowances for.

Chaplin was the greatest thing ever to hit motion pictures.

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.

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.

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.

I grew up in a small village outside of Krakow, and when I was small we had only a small television, and we had only one and two programs. I remember it was black and white. And I loved to watch Charlie Chaplin. I was so small, but I remember his movement.

When you think after 25 years of Mao, Chinese people had no idea about western music or even western culture. They had no idea about James Dean or the Beatles or Charlie Chaplin, modern music or modern cinema.

It’s about timing and rhythm. But who could be better than Chaplin or Keaton?

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.

I don’t think the physical resemblance is as important as capturing the soul of the person that the actor is portraying. How much like Charlie Chaplin did Robert Downey Jr. look in ‘Chaplin?’ Did Meryl Steep actually resemble Nora Ephron in ‘Heartburn?’

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.

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.

I was a big fan of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

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.

Chaplin was my idol. I remember watching those movies at this little theater in Woodstock, N.Y., when I was probably 6 and laughing so hard at the surprises, like Keaton suddenly being dragged by a streetcar.

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

Who made me laugh when I was growing was Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, and then moving on, there were so many that I was a writer for for many years: I was a writer for the Smothers Brothers, Lily Tomlin, then I started on ‘Saturday Night Live’ as the head writer the first year we started it.

My parents used to do these little film festivals in our house where we’d watch all the Marx Brothers movies, or Chaplin movies, and a lot of westerns.