- Comedy comes from inside. It comes from your face. It comes from your body.
- I do not believe the public will want spoken comedy. Motion pictures and the spoken arts are two distinct arts.
- [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.
- [when asked whether the transition from silents to sound made any problems because of his voice, as with so many other stars from the era] I had to work a little on my voice because I hadn't used it for years. I went to a voice coach for about five days, and then he said, "Good-bye, you just weren't using it right".
- In a feature picture I like quite well, the one in which I'm hanging on a clock, Safety Last! (1923), and which is probably one of our most popular, we did the final scenes of that climb first. We didn't know what we were going to have for the beginning of it. We hadn't made up the opening and after we found that we had, in our opinion, a very, very good thrill sequence, something that was going to be popular and bring in a few shekels, we went back and figured out what we would do for a beginning, and then worked on up to what we already had.
- [in 1970] My humor was never cruel or cynical. I just took life and poked fun at it. We made it so it could be understood the world over, without language barriers. We seem to have conquered the time barrier, too.
- [on his horn-rimmed glasses] At a cost of 75 cents they provide a trademark recognized instantly wherever pictures are shown.
- [on Bebe Daniels] She's a wonderful individual and I can understand why she's tremendously revered in Great Britain. She's very warm-hearted and she has a habit of giving -- never lost it!
- [In comedy] one situation leads to another - one 'gag' builds up its successor.We seek always to build up every situation to the 'topping-off' point. The top-off gag of any situation must always must have a greater force than any other in the sequence.
- The man who tries to be funny is lost. To lose one's naturalness is always to lose the sympathy of your audience.
- The spectacle of a fat man slipping on an icy sidewalk never fails to get a laugh. The same is true of a man attempting to drive a nail and mashing his finger in the process, or a man with his arms full of bundles attempting to keep his hat from blowing off. These things are funny because they have happened to all of us and probably will happen again. They are trying experiences for the individuals involved and we sympathize with them. But we laugh, nevertheless because they are human touches.
- The more trouble you get a man into, the more comedy you get out of him.
- [To Buster Keaton on his move to MGM in 1928] They're not your crowd; you'll lose.
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