Quotes by Steve Martin

If youve got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, youve got 71 cents left; But if youve got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, youve still got seventeen grand. Theres a math lesson for you.

Be so good they can’t ignore you.

I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a by-product. The course was more plodding than heroic: I did not strive valiantly against doubters but took incremental steps studded with a few intuitive leaps.

...teaching is, after all, a form of show business.

Free love, man, Free Love! Which, by the way, was the single greatest concept a young man has ever heard. About three years late, women got wise an my frustration returned to normal levels.

Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.

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

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

And after his unparsable response, including a passage where he said he was blurring the boundaries between a thing and thought, she said, Thank you, I get lost sometimes, while laying two fingers on his folded arm.

Comedy may be big business but it isnt pretty.

I love technology, and I love science. Its just always all in the way you use it. So theres no - you cant really blame anything on the technology. Its just the way people use it, and it always has been.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

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.

Ive always believed that there are funny people everywhere, but theyre just not comedians. In fact, some of my best comedic inspirations were not professional entertainers.

You know what your problem is, its that you havent seen enough movies - all of lifes riddles are answered in the movies.

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... Ive had people come up to me and say, We want to remake The Jerk with so and so. And I say, Fine. It just doesnt bother me. Its an honor actually.

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

Chaos in the midst of chaos isnt funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.

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

I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that its 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.