Steve Martin Quotes

I'm for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?

It's like painting the same blank canvas over and over and over and over and over. Once the concept is known, you don't need to see two. And that was in the back of my head, that I was really done artistically with what I had created or pastiched.

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.

I can't smell moth balls, I find it too difficult to get their tiny legs apart

It's not what you know, it's what you think you know.

With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you're never off the hook.

Rebelliousness really is the province of young people-that kind of iconoclasm.

Performing music is a way to do comedy, but without the obligation to do a solid hour, hour and half of a standup. I could intersperse it with music, so it became a really good format for me.

I would assign every lie a color: yellow when they were innocent, pale blue when they sailed over you like the sky, red because I knew they drew blood. And then there was the black lie. That's the worst of all. A black lie was when I told you the truth.

I studied with the Maharishi for many years, and really didn't learn that much. But one thing that he taught me, I'll never forget: 'ALWAYS...' no, wait-- 'NEVER...' no, wait, it was 'ALWAYS carry a litter bag in your car. It doesn't take up much room, and if it gets full, you can toss it out the window.'

There are few takers for the quiet heart.

First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me.

Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.

You know when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea: have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!

Lord loves a workin' man; don't trust whitey

Some nights, alone, he thinks of her, and some nights, alone, she thinks of him. Some night these thoughts, separated by miles and time zones, occur at the same objective moment, and Ray and Mirabelle are connected without ever knowing it.

It was so sweet backstage, you should have seen it - The Teamsters were helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo.

How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars

Were they beautiful? We were all beautiful. We were in our twenties.

Communication has changed so rapidly in the last 20 years, it's almost impossible to predict what might occur even in the next decade. E-mail, which now sends data hurtling across vast distances at the speed of light, has replaced primitive forms of communication such as smoke signals, which sent data hurtling across vast distances at the speed of light.

I used to smoke marijuana. But I'll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening - or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early mid-afternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . But never at dusk!

A friend of mine once asked how to make it in show business and I said "Be so good that they can't ignore you." She thought I was being flip but it's true. The challenge is trying to live up to the opportunities given me.

Talent is the ability to say things well, but genius is the ability to, well, say things.

If you feel tired midway through, give Neil Patrick Harris a Red Bull and throw some sheet music at him.

I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.

What means the most to me changes through the years. There was a time when movies meant the most. But when I'm concentrating on a project, that's what means the most to me.

So much emotion can be brought in an animated film that's very hard to get in a live-action film. I haven't quite put my finger on why, but it might be because the characters can make facial expression that, if you made them in a movie, they'd call them corny.

Writing is something I took up rather than anything I had an inclination toward. I like acting -delivering someone else's message - but writing is more of an accomplishment.

You can't really conduct your life by one or two phrases.

We've taken what was just once a racetrack and made it a multifaceted gaming destination for the entire region.

The self-prepared dinner is a great time killer for lonely people and as much time should be spent on it as possible.

I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act.

I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.

I loved magic, and so I would practice my magic tricks in front of a mirror for hours and hours and hours because I was told that you must practice, you must practice and never present a trick before it's ready.

The greatest thing you can do is surprise yourself.

Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.

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.

You want to know how I think art should be taught to children? Take them to a museum and say, 'This is art, and you can't do it.

I thought 'Borat' was a breakthrough comedy, because it was really funny. It wasn't some studio-produced script with 14 writers.

You kill me and I'll see that you never work in this town again.

When I die, now don't think that I'm a nut, don't want no fancy funeral, just one like old King Tut.

she is nearing forty and not so easily forgiven as when her skin bloomed like roses.

I've run into people in my life who were so dramatic; people who are so extreme and so frustrating to be around that you end up thinking about them and talking about them for literally years after your experience with them is over.

The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.

I really like the animated film process. It's kind of like doing a play, because you can experiment with it, rewrite it, screen it, go back, then work on it a little bit more. If the joke doesn't work, you can fix it. It's different from a live action movie.

Private companies have a lot of capital. They can run things efficiently and get projects built.

It's spooky to look at yourself, because you are never quite what you think you are. And you are never as good looking as the person you are acting with, or something like that. So I learned to stay away from it because it was giving me more negative feelings than positive ones.

It's very hard sometimes when you can't crack something or can't solve something and you keep trying and trying and you know it's falling a little bit short. That's very hard, but then when you finally do it, it's very rewarding and the process is good too, I like working with people this way.