Chaplin Quotations

I always try to do the unexpected in a novel way.

From “What People Laugh At”, American Magazine, November 1918: “I not only plan for surprise in the general incidents of a picture, but I also try to vary my individual actions so that they, too, will come as a surprise. I always try to do the unexpected in a novel way. If I think an audience expects me to walk along the street while in a picture, I will suddenly jump on a car. If I want to attract a man’s attention, instead of tapping him on the shoulder with my hand or calling to him, I hook my cane around his arm and gently pull him to me.”

It is a matter of simple knowledge that the human likes to see the struggle between the good and the bad, the rich and the poor, the successful and the unsuccessful.

From “What People Laugh At”, American Magazine, November 1918: “Another point about the human being that I use a great deal is the liking of the average person for contrast and surprise in his entertainment. It is a matter of simple knowledge, of course, that the human likes to see the struggle between the good and the bad, the rich and the poor, the successful and the unsuccessful. He likes to cry and he likes to laugh, all within the space of a very few moments. To the average person, contrast spells interest, and because it does I am constantly making use of it in my pictures.”

A man is what a woman makes him and a woman makes herself.

From Chaplin’s manuscript notes

This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.

From a scene in Monsieur Verdoux

I'm an old sinner. Nothing shocks me.

From Limelight (1952): Calvero (Charles Chaplin) to Terry (Claire Bloom) as he tries to learn if she has a venereal disease.

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

From My Autobiograpy: “The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting. I do not mean it in a derogatory sense. Often I have heard an actor say: ‘How I’d love to play that part,’ meaning he would love himself in the part. This may be egocentric; but the great actor is mainly preoccupied with his own virtuosity […] Just a fervent love of the theatre is not sufficient; there must also be a fervent love of and belief in oneself.”

[Talkies] are spoiling the oldest art in the world — the art of pantomime. They are ruining the great beauty of silence.

From an interview with Gladys Hall in Motion Picture Magazine, May 1929: “They [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, the appeal that has created the star system, the fan system, the vast popularity of the whole — the appeal of beauty. It’s beauty that matters in pictures — nothing else.”

I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.

King Shadov (Charles Chaplin) in A King in New York (1957)

I'm an old weed. The more I'm cut down, the more I spring up again.

Calvero says this in Limelight

I am what I am: an individual, unique and different.

In “A Writer’s Notebook”, Somerset Maugham attributes Chaplin’s profound melancholy and loneliness to his impoverished days back in London and comments that Chaplin is nostalgic to those days: “Charlie Chaplin… his fun is simple and sweet and spontaneous. And yet all the time you have a feeling that at the back of all is a profound melancholy. He is a creature of moods and it does not require his facetious assertion ‘Gee, I had such a fit of the blues last night I didn’t hardly know what to do with myself’ to warn you that his humour is lined with sadness. He does not give you the impression of a happy man. I have a notion that he suffers from a nostalgia of the slums. The celebrity he enjoys, his wealth, imprison him in a way of life in which he finds only constraint. I think he looks back to the freedom of his struggling youth, with its poverty and bitter privation, with a longing which knows it can never be satisfied. To him the streets of southern London are the scene of frolic, gaiety and extravagant adventure…I can imagine him going into his own house and wondering what on earth he is doing in this strange man’s dwelling. I suspect that the only home he can ever look upon as such is a second-floor back in the Kennington Road. One night I walked with him in Los Angeles and presently our steps took us to the poorest quarter of the city. There were sordid tenement houses and the shabby gaudy shops in which are sold the various goods that the poor buy from day to day. His face lit up and a buoyant tone came into his voice as he exclaimed, ‘Say, this is the real life, isn’t it? All the rest is just sham.’” In “My Autobiography”, Chaplin is annoyed by Maugham’s “attitude of wanting to make poverty attractive” and retorts that he does not know any poor man who has nostalgia for poverty. He concludes: “In spite of Maugham’s assumptions, like everyone else I am what I am: an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of ancestral promptings and urgings; a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, all of which I am the sum total.”

The roses you lifted to your lips ... lucky roses!

Henri Verdoux (Charles Chaplin) says this to Marie Grosnay (Isobel Elsom) as he tries to seduce her in Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

People's affection hurts me but it's a beautiful pain.

From ‘A Comedian Sees the World’: “Crowds are waiting at the hotel. Again I am stirred. People’s affection hurts me but it’s a beautiful pain.”

I hate the sight of blood, but it's in my veins.

In a scene in Limelight, Terry says to Calvero: “I thought you hated the theatre,” and Calvero replies, “I do. I also hate the sight of blood, but it’s in my veins.”

Let us fight for a new world.

From Chaplin’s final speech in The Great Dictator.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

Hannah (Paulette Goddard) says this to the Barber (Charles Chaplin) in The Great Dictator (1940)

Our tragedies are only as big as we make them.

From “A Comedian Sees the World” : “Upon my arrival there [New York] I invited the late Ralph Barton, the famous caricaturist and writer, to come as my guest to Europe. He confessed to me that he had been feeling depressed, and that recently he had attempted suicide. Poor Ralph! I remember I tried to appeal to his ego. ‘Life could never defeat me,’ I said. ‘Nothing matters, only physical pain. Our tragedies are only as big as we make them.’”

Our existence is a half-dream ... it is difficult to know where the dream ends and reality begins.

From My Autobiography: “There are mystics who believe that our existence is a half-dream and that it is difficult to know where the dream ends and reality begins. Thus it was with me.”

Laughter is very close to tears and vice versa.

Charles Chaplin, 1931: “The cane is very important for my character. It’s my whole philosophy. I keep it not only as an emblem of respectability but, with it, I defy fate and adversity. The poor, small, frightened, frail and undernourished man I am on the screen is never the prey of the ones who torment him. When his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations vanish, he only shrugs his shoulders and turns on his heel. It is rather a paradox to admit that this tragic mask has created more laughs than any other character on the screen or stage. This proves that laughter is very close to tears and vice versa.”

If a few slapstick comedies could arouse such excitement, was there not something bogus about all celebrity?

From My Autobiography: “The large railroad station in Kansas City was packed solidly with people. The police were having difficulty controlling further crowds accumulating outside. A ladder was placed against the train to enable me to mount it and show myself on the roof. I round myself repeating the same banal words as in Amarillo. More telegrams awaited me: would I visit schools and institutions? I stuffed them in my suitcase, to be answered in New York. From Kansas City to Chicago people were again standing at railroad junctions and in fields, waving as the train swept by. I wanted to enjoy it all without reservation, but I kept thinking the world had gone crazy! If a few slapstick comedies could arouse such excitement, was there not something bogus about all celebrity? I had always thought I would like the public’s attention, and here it was — paradoxically isolating me with a depressing sense of loneliness.”

Meeting people formally is like viewing a house without going inside.

From “A Comedian Sees the World”, Part IV: “Meeting people formally is like viewing a house without going inside. I shall always remember the interview with the late President Wilson at the White House during the Third Liberty Loan Campaign. There were for of us - Mary Pickford, Marie Dressler, Douglas Fairbanks and myself. We were ushered into the famous Green Room and told to “please be seated.” I’d rehearsed a speech for the occasion and intended telling the President several complimentary anecdotes about himself which I thought amusing. Eventually an official came into the room. “Stand up in line, please.” Then in came the President. “Will you all come a pace forward?” and we were formally introduced. The President was gracious and felt it incumbent to tell a story as we stood lined abreast in front of him. Anxious to brighten the solemnity of the occasion, I laughed before he came to the point which caused the others to glance at me with concern. Then came that moment of embarrassing silence. However, Marie Dressler came to the rescue and also told a story. Not having heard either one at the time I cannot record them now. I only now that I laughed politely. Then Mary found herself and told the President the wonderful spirit and cooperation that was evident throughout the country. Now was my opportunity, so I piped in with, “There certainly is- or are.” I remember the singular and plural worried me at the time. This was my only contribution to the interview and I left the White House pleasantly dazed and proud.”