fun facts:

1) chaplin first realized the power of comedy when he fell ill and his mom sat by the window for weeks and re-enacted anything she saw that might amuse him.

2) chaplin won third place when he secretly entered a charlie chaplin look-a-like contest.

3) despite its increasing popularity, chaplin initially refused to adopt audio and dialogue for a long time, for fear that it would ruin the tramp.

4) chaplin was so obsessed with achieving immortality through his persona that he allowed “the tramp” to appear in just about anything.

5) when walt disney was about to give up on snow white — the world’s first feature-length animated movie — chaplin apparently convinced him to see it through.

“life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”

“to truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!”

“failure is unimportant. it takes courage to make a fool of yourself.”

“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.”

“i thought i would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.”

“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.”

“life is a play that does not allow testing. so, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause.”

“the deeper the truth in a creative work, the longer it will live.”

“in the creation of comedy, it is paradoxical that tragedy stimulates the spirit of ridicule; because ridicule, i suppose, is an attitude of defiance: we must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature — or go insane.”

“all artists experience a lull in their work. it is a period of replenishing the soil – of plowing in and turning under our past experiences and watering them afresh with new ones."

“over the years i have discovered that ideas come through an intense desire for them; continually desiring, the mind becomes a watch-tower on the look-out for incidents that may excite the imagination – music, a sunset, may give image to an idea.”

“beauty is the spirit of all things, an exaltation, a psalm of life and death, of good and evil, of vileness and purity, of joy and pain, of hate and love—all of it incarnate in the object we see or hear. it is an empathy, a feeling into art or nature that we observe—all of it a singing harmony to our senses.”