Buster Keaton Quotes & Sayings

Is Hollywood the cruelest city in the world? Well, it can be. New York can be that, too. You can be a Broadway star here one night, and something happens, and out
nobody knows you on the street. They forget you ever lived. It happens in Hollywood, too. — Buster Keaton

What really got my goat at MGM were comedians like The Marx Brothers who never wrote their own jokes. — Buster Keaton

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. — Buster Keaton

A comedian does funny things. A good comedian does things funny. — Buster Keaton

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

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

I don't feel qualified to talk about my work, — Buster Keaton

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. — Buster Keaton

The funny thing about our act is that dad gets the worst of it, although I'm the one who apparently receives the bruises ... the secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment. — Buster Keaton

I was standing on the deck looking down at a gang of stevedores working on the dock thirty feet below. One of them recognized me, nudged his neighbor, and pointed. All at once the whole gang stopped working to yell, 'Booster! Booster Keaton!' They waved in wild excitement, and I waved back, marveling, because it was fifteen years of more since they could have seen my last M-G-M picture.
And if there is sweeter music this side of heaven I haven't heard it. Dr. Avedon said I could live to be a hundred years old. I intend to do it. For who would not wish to live a hundred years in a world where there are so many people who remember with gratitude and affection a little man with a frozen face who made them laugh a bit long years ago when they and I were both young? — Buster Keaton

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. — Buster Keaton

If one more person tells me this is just like old times, I swear I'll jump out the window. — Buster Keaton

Like everyone else, I like to be with a happy crowd. — Buster Keaton

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

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. — Buster Keaton

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

Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter. — Buster Keaton

Charlie Chaplin and I would have a friendly contest: Who could do the feature film with the least subtitles? — Buster Keaton