Quotes by Steve Martin

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

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

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

Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.

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

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

Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, youll be a mile away and have his shoes.

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

Ive got to keep breathing. Itll be my worst business mistake if I dont.

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

Its so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, its like, religion, you really cant take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary...but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldnt believe in anything anymore if it werent for my lucky astrology mood watch.

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.

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

both you and paintings are layered… first, ephemera and notations on the back of the canvas. Labels indicate gallery shows, museum shows, footprints in the snow, so to speak. Then pencil scribbles on the stretcher, usually by the artist, usually a title or date. Next the stretcher itself. Pine or something. Wooden triangles in the corners so the picture can be tapped tighter when the canvas becomes loose. Nails in the wood securing the picture to the stretcher. Next, a canvas: linen, muslin, sometimes a panel; then the gesso - a primary coat, always white. A layer of underpaint, usually a pastel color, then, the miracle, where the secrets are: the paint itself, swished around, roughly, gently, layer on layer, thick or thin, not more than a quarter of an inch ever -- God can happen in that quarter of an inch -- the occasional brush hair left embedded, colors mixed over each other, tones showing through, sometimes the weave of the linen revealing itself. The signature on top of the entire goulash. Then varnish is swabbed over the whole. Finally, the frame, translucent gilt or carved wood. The whole thing is done.

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 cant do it.

People in coats and ties were milling around the Talley gallery, and on the wall were the minimally rendered still lifes by Giorgio Morandi, most of them no bigger than a tea tray. Their thin browns, ashy grays, and muted blues made people speak softly to one another, as if a shouted word might curdle one of the paintings and ruin it. Bottles, carafes, and ceramic whatnots sat in his paintings like small animals huddling for warmth, and these shy pictures could easily hang next to a Picasso or Matisse without feeling inferior.

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.

Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent.

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

If you saw her in these moments, you might think she was collecting her thoughts in order to go forward. But I see it another way: Her mind is being overwhelmed by two processes that must simultaneously proceed at full steam. One is to deal with and live in the present world. The other is to re-experience and mourn something that happened long ago. It is as though her lightness pulls her toward heaven, but the extra gravity around her keeps her earthbound.