"All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl" [Returning to Los Angeles after a 20-year self-imposed exile to accept his honorary Oscar in 1971] "Thank you so much. This is an emotional moment for me and words seem so futile, so feeble... I can only say that... thank you for the honor of inviting me here and... oh... you're wonderful, sweet people. Thank you." "I like friends as I like music, when I am in the mood. To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune." "The minute you bought your ticket you were in another world." "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." "The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury." (On being informed that Hitler sat through two screenings of "The Great Dictator") "I'd give anything to know what he thought of it." I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ was President. Answering the bad critics he got on his last movie A Countess From Hong Kong: "If they don't like it, they are bloody idiots. A diplomat falls in love with a prostitute - what better story can they get than that?" "The summation of my character [The Tramp] is that I care about my work. I care about everything I do. If I could do something else better, I would do it, but I can't." Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is "elephant." "I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born." "I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career." A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. 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. Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself. 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. "Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage." "Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves." "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." "My childhood was sad, but now I remember it with nostalgia, like a dream."