Steve Martin Quotes

I'm not trying to be a big shot or anything like that, but I get my drinks half price.

There's no better way to learn something than to learn it in front of an audience. Your terror drives you.

Anyone who's ever worked with Meryl Streep always says the same thing: can that woman act! And what's with all the Hitler memorabilia?

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

introductions are hard to come by when your natural state is shyness

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!

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.

When someone less capable is ahead of me, I am not pleased. It makes me insane.

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 someway.

A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.

I guess I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.

...it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.

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 got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly.

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

Always do business as if the person you're doing business with is trying to screw you, because he probably is. And if he's not, you can be pleasantly surprised.

You have to get comfortable [with your work], you really have to know what you're doing, and it has to be almost boring to you to be able to do it well.

I'm not a human being. I'm despicable and disgusting - but that's where the money is.

A celebrity is any well-known TV or movie star who looks like he spends more than two hours working on his hair.

The Apple Pie Hubbub was a significant novel for me, because that's when I first started using verbs.

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 like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.

Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.

I try not to think about legacy because it is all ­folly. If you study history, even recent history, you'll find many people who were quite significant in their time but are completely forgotten.

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.

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

You know, you're really nobody in L.A. unless you live in a house with a really big door.

All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.

You know, there's a moment when you're famous when it's unbearable to go out because you're too famous. And then there's a moment when you're famous just right.

Comedy is not pretty.

In my banjo show with the Steep Canyon Rangers, I do do comedy during that show. It'd be absurd just to stand there mute and play 25 banjo songs.

I believe in eight of the ten commandments. I believe in going to church every Sunday... unless there's a game on.

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'm enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.

Awards mean nothing to comedians. What matters is the audience, how you're doing - artistically, for the most part - at that moment.

If you're studying Geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but Philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life.

It's funny that some ideas start with a little "What if?" and then suddenly you're spending a million dollars to shoot the scene and hoping that it works.

To be with another woman, that is French. To be caught, that is American.

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 think there are people out there writing original bluegrass songs, but it's hard to get them out on the air.

I can juggle. I started juggling as a kid. And when I worked at Disneyland, I knew a juggler there named Christopher Faire, and he taught me how to juggle. I used it in my comedy act for a while.

I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.

Knowledge of means without knowledge of ends is animal training.

She had destroyed whatever was between us by making a profound gaffe: She met me.

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

I was not naturally talented. I didn't sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.

I will do anything to look like him - except, of course, exercise or eat right.

I'm always looking for something to engage my imagination and take me on a little mental voyage. I just want a new topic in my life.

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.

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