Quotes from Buster Keaton

And if there is sweeter music this side of heaven I haven't heard it.

I was mad at the time, or I would never have done the thing.

I don't act, anyway. The stuff is all injected as we go along. My pictures are made without script or written directions of any kind.

Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter.

Down through the years my face has been called a sour puss, a dead pan, a frozen face, The Great Stone Face, and, believe it or not, "a tragic mask." On the other hand that kindly critic, the late James Agee, described my face as ranking "almost with Lincoln's as an early American archetype, it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful." I can't imagine what the great rail splitter's reaction would have been to this, though I sure was pleased.

I don't act, anyway. The stuff is all injected as we go along. My pictures are made without script or written directions of any kind

I do not really think Charlie knows much more about politics, history, or economics than I do. Like myself he was hit by a make-up towel almost before he was out of diapers.

My God, we ate, slept and dreamed our pictures.

Nobody suspected that the World War just ending would prove to be merely the first one. Had not President Wilson proclaimed it the war to end all wars—if we jumped in and did the dirty job?

No man can be a genius in slapshoes and a flat hat.

I don't feel qualified to talk about my work.

They say pantomime's a lost art. It's never been a lost art and never will be, because it's too natural to do.

Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.