Top 367 Quotes & Sayings by Steve Martin
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American comedian Steve Martin.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
I love technology, and I love science. It's just always all in the way you use it. So there's no - you can't really blame anything on the technology. It's just the way people use it, and it always has been.
I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I'm sure that's some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there's a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out.
When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well.
It's a mystery to me the way that contemporary art galleries function.
I never thought about success. I always thought about doing the job at hand. My goal was getting through the show that night.
I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.
Everything is fraught with danger. I love technology and I love science. It's just always all in the way you use it. So there's no - you can't really blame anything on the technology. It's just the way people use it, and it always has been.
I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.
Nothing I do is done by popular demand.
I wish I could do a lot of things different. I'm not going to tell you what they are, but if I had a list of all my films right now, I'd go, 'Okay, I'll cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out.' Really. But I've made over 40 films. How can I not have some losers in there?
Well, excuuuuuse me!
I've always believed that there are funny people everywhere, but they're just not comedians. In fact, some of my best comedic inspirations were not professional entertainers.
I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.
The real joy is in constructing a sentence. But I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready.
I thought if I had a Twitter feed and say I had a following of a 100,000, that means 100,000 of them would be interested in my book. It was logical, but it didn't turn out to be true. It turned out if I had a Twitter feed of a 100,000, four of them were interested in my book.
With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you're never off the hook.
I don't like to look back, and I'm always worried about the next thing rather than resting on the laurels or the degradations of the last thing.
I like all kinds of music. I listen to Abigail Washburn, the Punch Brothers, and Marc Johnson, the great clawhammer player. I also listen a lot to Sirius Radio, there's a lot of bluegrass there.
I was raised with 'Laurel and Hardy' and 'I Love Lucy' and Jerry Lewis, and I just loved it. And I had a friend in high school and we would just laugh all day and put on skits. You know, it's the Andy Kaufman thing or the Marty Short thing where you're performing in your bedroom for yourself.
An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.
When I was in college, I was debating to try my hand at show business, or to become a professor. I just thought of the risk of not going into show business and always wondering if I would've had a chance. Because that's where my real heart was.
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.
Love is a promise delivered already broken.
I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.
I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.
No matter how many times people say it - 'Oh, I'm just writing this for myself' 'Oh, I'm just doing this for myself' - nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience. So whether I'm performing or writing a book or playing music, it's definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way, definitely.
What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.
I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.
I'm for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?
I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.
Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.
Don't have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.
I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.
I'm enamored with the art world.
I would get records by Earl Scruggs... I would tune my banjo down and I'd pick out the songs note by note. Learned how to play that way. I persevered. There was a book written by Pete Seeger, who showed you some basic strumming and some basic picking... And I kind of worked out my own style of playing.
I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it's easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin' man and the loner.
I loved doing 'Pennies from Heaven.' Because you have to understand that I'd been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and suddenly along came the opportunity to do this beautiful film. It was so emotional to me. I loved it. I don't think it was a good career move, but I have no regrets about doing it.
A record isn't like a movie - you can get it together pretty fast.
You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do.
I was very interested in vaudeville. It was the only sort of discipline that was a five-minute act on stage, which is what I really enjoyed and saw myself doing. And I bought books on it.
Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.
Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!
You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies.
Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I'd do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.
Tweeting is really only good for one thing - it's just good for tweeting... It is rewarding, because it's just its own reward. It's sort of like heaven.
I really enjoy finding the right word, creating a good, flowing sentence. I enjoy the rhythm of the words.
I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness.
What is a movie star? A movie star is many things. They can be tall, short, thin, or skinny. They can be Democrats... or skinny.
The bluegrass community... can be very strict. I didn't know if I'd be welcomed into the bluegrass community or not, but I think they judge you very fairly... I felt really welcome.
'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' is a good one because it not only turned out, I think, to be a really funny movie but it was also a delight to shoot. We were in the South of France, working with Glenne Headly and Michael Caine and Frank Oz the director - who were just fun.
I was not naturally talented. I didn't sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.
There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she caught me with another woman. I won't stand for that.
A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.
I got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly.
I cringe at backstory. Because it never quite explains or gets into some psychological thing that is never quite right and never quite the truth and who knows why someone is some way.
Hosting the Oscars is much like making love to a woman. It's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.
The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.
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