Steve Martin Quotes

“She tried to get even with him through psychological warfare but couldn't, because he didn't care.”

“You know that look that women get when they want to have sex? Me neither.”

Source: Shopgirl

“I gave my cat a bath the other day… they love it. He sat there, he enjoyed it, it was fun for me. The fur would stick to my tongue, but other than that…”

“I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them.”

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

“Now let's repeat the non-conformists' oath: I promise to be different! (audience repeats) I promise to be unique! (audience repeats) I promise not to repeat things other people say! (audience repeats, laughs) Good!”

Steve Martin Quotes about people

“How many people have never raised their hand before?”

Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

“I've heard lots of people lie to themselves but they never fool anyone.”

Source: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

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

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

“Some people have a way with words, and other people… oh, uh, not have way.”

Source: Shopgirl

“Why is it we don't always recognize the moment when love begins, but we always know when it ends?”

Steve Martin Quotes about love

“Unlike Ray Porter, his love is fearless and without reservation.”

As Harris K. Telemacher in "L.A. Story" (1991)

“I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.”

Source: Shopgirl

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

“Hosting the Oscars is like making love to a beautiful woman — it's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal's out of town.”

“I handed in a script last year and the studio didn't change one word. The word they didn't change was on page 87.”

Hosting the 2001 Academy Awards

Steve Martin: Trending quotes

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

Introducing the best adapted screenplay at the 2003 Academy Awards

“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! Never at dusk, I would never do that.”

As Harris K. Telemacher in "L.A. Story" (1991)

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

Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

Steve Martin Quotes

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

“… 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.”

“How is it possible to miss a woman whom you kept at a distance, so that when she was gone you would not miss her?”

Source: Shopgirl

“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.”

Source: Shopgirl

“I have found that-- just as in real life--imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience.”

“I have heard it said that a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts. I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know I am qualified to be a comedian.”

Source: An Object Of Beauty

“Somewhere in the world is… The world's worst doctor and he could be yours.”

Source: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“Comedy is not pretty.”

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

Comedy album "Comedy is Not Pretty"

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

“Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.”

Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

“I saw the movie, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and was surprised because I didn't see any tigers or dragons. And then I realized why: they're crouching and hidden.”

Source: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”

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

“… you're nuts but you're welcome here.”

“Be so good they can't ignore you.”

“If you've got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've got 71 cents left; But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand. There's a math lesson for you.”

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

“We've had some fun tonight… considering we're all gonnasomeday.”

“She has learned that her body is precious and it mustn't be offered carelessly ever again, as it holds a direct connection to her heart.”

“The banjo is such a happy instrument--you can't play a sad song on the banjo - it always comes out so cheerful.”

Source: Shopgirl

“I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.”

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

Source: The Pleasure of My Company

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

“Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.”

“The operation was a success, but I'm afraid the doctor is dead.”

Source: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“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”

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

“Yeah, well, we're all writers, aren't we? He's a writer that hasn't been published, and I'm a writer who hasn't written anything.”

“A girl who is willing to give every ounce of herself to someone, who could never betray her lover, who never suspects maliciousness of anyone, and whose sexuality sleeps in her, waiting to be stirred.”

Source: Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays

“Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naïveté, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do.”

Source: Shopgirl

“Or is it that I think too much?”

Source: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“Why sip from a tea cup, when you can drink from the river.”

Source: The Pleasure of My Company

“Hello. I'm hello, and I'd like to say myself.”

Source: L.A. Story and Roxanne: Screenplays

“Only then does he realize what he has done to Mirabelle, how wanting a square inch of her and not all of her has damaged them both, and how he cannot justify his actions except that, well, it was life.”

“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.”

Source: Shopgirl

“There are few takers for the quiet heart.”

Source: An Object of Beauty

“Always… no wait… never…..”

Source: The Pleasure of My Company

“I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is.”

“… just remember, darling, it is pain that changes our lives.”

“With a cheery delicacy she divided my obsessions into three categories: acceptable, unacceptable, and hilarious.”

Variant: It's pain that changes our lives.
Source: Shopgirl

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

Source: The Pleasure of My Company

“Lacy was just as happy alone as with company. When she was alone, she was potential; with others she was realized.”

Source: An Object of Beauty

“She was feeling her bohemian oats.”

Source: An Object of Beauty

“…when the person beside you is making you alert and keen and the idea of being with anyone else is not imaginable…”

Source: Shopgirl

“Mirabelle is attractive; it's just that she is never the first or second girl chosen.”

Source: An Object of Beauty

“Anyway, seeking work is a tad difficult given the poor design of the streets with their prohibitive curbs and driveways that don't quite line up.”

Source: Shopgirl

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

Source: The Pleasure of My Company