When we got off the streetcar at Times Square, it was somewhat of a letdown. Newspapers were blowing about the road and pavement, and Broadway looked seedy, like a slovenly woman just out of bed.

My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain.

There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.

You are only as good as the woman you are standing beside.

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.

Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.

I am not a political man and I have no political convictions. I am an individual and a believer in liberty. That is all the politics I have. On the other hand I am not a super-patriot. Super-patriotism leads to Hitlerism - and we've had our lesson there. I don't want to create a revolution - I just want to create a few more films.