Steve Martin quotes

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“Don't have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.”

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

“Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!”

— Steve Martin

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.”

— Steve Martin

“I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.”

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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?”

— Steve Martin

“Nothing I do is done by popular demand.”

— Steve Martin

“Love is a promise delivered already broken.”

— Steve Martin

“Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.”

— Steve Martin

“I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

“I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin