Steve Martin quotes

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

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

“Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.”

— Steve Martin

“'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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“I actually credit Twitter with fine-tuning some joke-writing skills. I still feel like I'm working at it.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“I feel good about being able to take bluegrass on to television like 'Letterman' and 'The View,' and I've heard nice things about being able to do that. I really haven't felt any negativity toward me or my music.”

— Steve Martin

“I got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly.”

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

“I knew I could only play Cyrano if he were Americanized. I had no intention of writing the script myself. I was afraid of it. You're playing with fire when you tamper with a classic. So I went looking for a writer. But it was such a personal idea, and anyone I would give it to would make it his own. It's hard to ask Neil Simon to write your idea.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“Movies always are open to being remade because times change so much, and the tempo of movies changes. I think of it like a James Bond. They can have different actors play the same role... I've had people come up to me and say, 'We want to remake 'The Jerk' with so and so.' And I say, 'Fine.' It just doesn't bother me. It's an honor actually.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

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

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“There's a lot of thought in art. People get to talk about important things. There's a lot of sex, you know, in art. There's a lot of naked women and men, and there's intrigue, there's fakery. It's a real microcosm of the larger world.”

— Steve Martin

“Throughout my whole life, as a performer, I've never played with a band. I've always played alone, so I was never required to stay in rhythm or anything. So it was a real different experience for me to start playing with a band. There were so many basic things for me to learn.”

— Steve Martin

“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.”

— Steve Martin

“Well, today the Grammys is much much better than the Oscars. I think the differences in the shows are that the Grammys are much wilder. The Oscars is much more people in the industry. And people dress wilder, I think, at the Grammys.”

— Steve Martin