My prodigious sin was, and still is, being a non-conformist.

One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero.

That's what all we are: amateurs. We don't live long enough to be anything else.

Had I known of the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator, I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis.

So when I cease to be I want to go back...to the sea! Oh for the life of a sardine! That is the life for me!

A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.

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