Comedy is a serious business.

Buster Keaton
 

 
He left behind a bunch of films, all Silent, to most of which the word 'masterpiece' easily fits. His greatness as clown and creative film-maker is more available now than it was through most of his lifetime - and, to judge from the laughter to be heard at successive showings, is more appreciated than that of Chaplin, who overshadowed him for so long. Posterity has reversed their reputations - as, indeed, it had to.

David Shipman The Great Movie Stars 1 : The Golden Years   First published 1970
 

It wasn't Buster's life. They called him technical advisor but they never listened to him. I remember talking to him right after we'd shot a scene of him as a boy in the circus going on for his father who had just died. I asked Buster "What kind of circus was it?" He looked at me and said, "I was never in a circus." So I asked him, "Well, how old were you when your father died?" "Forty five," he said.

Quote taken from the 1985 Penguin Book That's Dancing!
 

 
The comedian was so brilliant in his silent pictures that it is sad to record that he has not been an equal success in sound films. His art is essentially pantomimic, requiring no dialogue. Almost every word of the several Keaton sound films was a waste of breath. Every minute of Keaton in a silent picture is a joy. His best films are generally considered to be Our Hospitality, Go West and The Cameraman - all silent.

From the 1954 book Comedy Films by John Montgomery
 

 
The older Keaton got, the more one could see eternity in his look.

Robert Benayoun The Look Of Buster Keaton
 

 
Although known for his eternally blank pan expression, Buster had one of the most beautifully expressive faces in film.

Jim Kline The Complete Films Of Buster Keaton  1993
 

 
The very first film Keaton released as a star, once his association with Arbuckle had ended, was, breathtakingly, an explosion of style. To sit through dozens and dozens of short films of the period and then to come upon One Week is to see the one thing no man ever sees : a garden at the moment of blooming.

Walter Kerr The Silent Clowns  1975
 

 
Buster Keaton shows signs of vaulting ambition in The General; he appears to be attempting to enter the "epic" class. That he fails to get across is due to the scantiness of his material compared with the length of his films; he has also displayed woefully bad judgement in deciding just where and when to stop.

Robert E. Sherwood LIFE magazine review  February 24, 1927
 

 
I think that during the Seventies Buster Keaton replaced Chaplin as the master of movie comedy most admired by Americans seriously interested in cinema

Dwight Macdonald New York Review Of Books
 

 
Looking back now, I think of a face which never smiled, of a body which never smiled either, though it had the mobility of quicksilver.

Dilys Powell From the Introduction, My Wonderful World Of Slapstick   1967
 

 
Jack Lemmon, devastated by the break-up of his marriage, packs his sinuses and his nervous tics and moves in with happily divorced Walter Matthau. They soon drive each other nuts. Apart from a cringe-making scene with two English girls, Neil Simon's comedy has weathered well, bristling with one liners timed to perfection by Lemmon and Matthau, the American cinema's best comedy duo since Buster and Keaton.

Review of The Odd Couple, from The Radio Times 1997
 

 
Here is the most modern of all vintage comedians, the most visually refined of directors. How I envy anyone watching these films for the first time.

Geoff Brown The Times  1995
 

 
When he ran....his transitions from accelerating walk to easy jogtrot to brisk canter to headlong gallop to flogged-piston sprint - always floating, above this frenzy, the untroubled, untouchable face - were as distinct and as soberly in order as an automatic gearshift.

James Agee From his article "Comedy's Greatest Era", Time   1949
 

 
Q. After you've done the last stunt, the last kick, what do you want the public to remember about Jackie Chan?
A. I just want that one day, when I retire, that people still remember me like they remember Buster. I really want someone to respect me the way they respect Buster.

From an interview with Jackie Chan  1997
 

 
When Rob (Cohen, director) set this film (Daylight) up, he was very conscious of what Buster Keaton did - those extraordinary visuals. If you look at Keaton today, I'm in awe of what he did, really in awe of the bravery and the audacity and the temerity.

From an interview with Sylvester Stallone  1996
 

 
...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 / Charles Samuels My Wonderful World Of Slapstick  1960