- Blake Edwards: If I'm gonna make a film, particularly that kind of a film, I'd like to make it in places that have great restaurants at night and great hotels to stay in, and places I have not been before.
- Ralph E. Winters: [On Peter Sellers] I heard someone say, "Hiya Ralph, how are ya?" I thought it was Walter Mirisch, and I turned around and it was Peter doing Walter Mirisch... . He got Walter Mirisch's wife on the phone, and had her crazy. She thought she was talking to her husband.
- Blake Edwards: An agent suggested Peter Sellers. I was unaware of Peter Sellers except for one film that he had done to that point, which was a film called, "I'm All Right Jack." And I thought, a pudgy, kind of cockney, and he said, no, no, that's the character he played. He's, and they gave me his whole history, and I was kinda desperate at that point. So I said, well okay, let's take a shot at it
- Ralph E. Winters: [Speaking of Blake Edwards] Always in his movies, every scene, every shot was mounted with class.
- Blake Edwards: [On Shot in the Dark] Sellers was supposed to do it; and he didn't wanna do it. He was desperate not to do it. And he came to me and said 'I don't like the whole set up and can't you step in.
- Blake Edwards: Well, "Shot in the Dark" was... was an unintentional Clouseau. It was originally a play, a Broadway play, with Walter Matthau, and it didn't resemble the film really, the film, at all.
- Joe Dunne: [On Peter Sellers] He could do anybody's voice. Anybody's... If you got too close to him, he could become very very temperamental in all the turmoil and trouble in his life.
- Ed Sikov: Blake Edwards came to the Pink Panther having made two rather different films - Breakfast at Tiffany's and Days of Wine and Roses.
- Walter Mirisch: Our philosophy was to create a family. We gravitated naturally to Blake Edwards, who we felt was a, uh, potential natural heir of Billy Wilder's.
- Blake Edwards: There were good times and bad times. The good times were as good as it could ever get -- more fun, more joy, in the good times. And, the bad times might just as well have been like going to the doctor and having him tell you, well, I'm sorry, but you're terminal.
- Joe Dunne: [On Peter Sellers, as his double] He wasn't the healthiest guy in the world. So he wouldn't exert himself too much if he didn't have to. Which was good for me. I mean, I didn't mind doing that sort of stuff. I went all over the world with the guy - It was great.
- Walter Mirisch: When the picture started out, David Niven had the leading role. When it finished, Peter Sellers did. And the script was barely changed.
- Blake Edwards: [On Peter Seller] In the first film, he has all the physical fun. He didn't have the action... . Peter went to Paris for a weekend - disappeared. We didn't know where he was. Came back, and when I was just about ready to chew his ass, which happened quite frequently, he says, I ran into a concierge in Paris who talks like this, so I said we gotta use it
- Blake Edwards: We dealt creatively with the Mirisches, and the Mirisches said, look, you're good enough for us to hire you. You go make the movies, let us take care of United Artists.
- Ed Sikov: [Of the Mirisch Brothers] What they didn't do was interfere with filmmakers' artistic creativity; they let guys like Billy Wilder, and Blake Edwards, do the kind of films that they wanted to do, without a lot of interference.
- Walter Mirisch: We decided to offer the leading role - or it was, at the time in the picture, to David Niven.