Skip to main content

I knew I wanted to be in come...

I knew I wanted to be in comedy but the path of least resistance was doing stand-up in folk music clubs where I could get on stage. I guess you could get up no matter how bad you were and you didn't have to audition. You just got up. Everything else required an audition and if you auditioned for a TV show, you would stand in line with a hundred other people. But at the clubs, it was okay just to get up, so that's why I started in stand-up.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

When you're touring and if yo...

When you're touring and if you go to a party, there's automatically a celebrity-audience distance. It follows you around, especially when you're on the road in small towns. Any time there is awe, it gets very difficult to be normal, to be yourself. But I'm not saying that that's what made me the way I am. I've probably always been distant.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I didn't worry if a bit got n...

I didn't worry if a bit got no response, as long as I believed it had enough response to linger.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

He gave her his phone number,...

He gave her his phone number, in a peculiar reversal of dating procedure. She might have considered kissing him, even after the horrible first date, but he just didn’t seem to know what to do. However, Jeremy does have one outstanding quality. He likes her. And this quality in a person makes them infinitely interesting to the person who is being liked.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I used to think a wedding was...

I used to think a wedding was a simple affair. Boy and girl meet, they fall in love, he buys a ring, she buys a dress, they say I do. I was wrong. That's getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

Knowledge of means without kn...

Knowledge of means without knowledge of ends is animal training.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

There are some people that wi...

There are some people that will not pick up a phone and call you, but if you knock on a door and talk to them, they'll talk back to you.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

If he thinks he would harm Mi...

If he thinks he would harm Mirabelle, he would back away. But he does not yet understand when and how people are hurt. He doesn't understand the subtleties of slights and pains, that 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.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

Reviews for someone like me c...

Reviews for someone like me come in three packages. One is justifiable praise, the second is justifiable criticism, and the third is, "This is only published because he's a celebrity."

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I try not to think about lega...

I try not to think about legacy because it is all ­folly. If you study history, even recent history, you'll find many people who were quite significant in their time but are completely forgotten.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

My most persistent memory of ...

My most persistent memory of stand - up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare - enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I don't think comic timing is...

I don't think comic timing is the same as music timing, but I definitely find that I've learned from just writing in general that songs can be narrative without having a story.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I understood that as much as ...

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.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I cringe at backstory. Becaus...

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 someway.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I ignored my stand-up career ...

I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

Romance takes place when you ...

Romance takes place when you first fall in love. It stirs all emotions and you can manipulate and be manipulated.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

For a while, Mirabelle believ...

For a while, Mirabelle believes there will be a moment when he will cave in and let himself love her, but eventually she lets the idea go. She hits bottom. She dwells in the muck for several months, not depressed exactly, but involved in a mourning that at first she thinks is for Ray but soon realizes is for the loss of her old self.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I really like the animated fi...

I really like the animated film process. It's kind of like doing a play, because you can experiment with it, rewrite it, screen it, go back, then work on it a little bit more. If the joke doesn't work, you can fix it. It's different from a live action movie.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

I was not self-destructive, t...

I was not self-destructive, though I almost destroyed myself. In the end, I turned away from stand-up with a tired swivel of my head...

Steve Martin 375 quotes

It's like painting the same b...

It's like painting the same blank canvas over and over and over and over and over. Once the concept is known, you don't need to see two. And that was in the back of my head, that I was really done artistically with what I had created or pastiched.

Steve Martin 375 quotes

Добрые, щедрые, великодушные: 6 советских актеров, которые были всеобщими любимчиками

23

Советских актёров часто ставят в пример как образец духовной силы, национальной гордости и внутренней красоты. Они стали символами эпохи, носителями культуры и нравственности. Но, как известно, за кул...

Десять кинозвезд, которые отлично поют

83

Актеры — люди творческие, но кто бы мог подумать, что некоторые из них скрывают прекрасный голос. В эпоху раннего Голливуда актеров с музыкальными способностями было немало — это считалось скорее норм...

Мэрилин Монро, Ким Кардашьян и другие

115

Неузнаваемая Ким Кардашьян в объективе фотографа Маркуса Клинко, 2009 год. Памела Андерсон в самой первой съёмке для журнала «Playboy», 1990. На фото голливудская актриса Dorothy Lamour и шимпанзе Джи...

Что стало с детьми-звездами: Рэдклифф и компания спустя годы

219

Расскажем, как сложилась судьба актеров, которые начинали сниматься еще в детстве.
Остаться на вершине в Голливуде удаётся не каждому, особенно если путь начался в детстве. Одни актёры теряются из-за...

Жизнь за границей: как изменились судьбы 7 уехавших телеведущих

541

Два года назад отечественное телевидение столкнулось с беспрецедентной кадровой тектоникой — целая группа ярких и узнаваемых ведущих стремительно исчезла с экранов федеральных каналов. Эти лица долгие...

Кира Найтли, Деми Мур и другие

165

Кира Найтли на страницах журнала к выходу фильма «Пиджак», 2005. Следы динозавра, раскопанные в русле реки Палакси. Техас. США. 1952г. Самая большая женщина рядом с самым маленьким мужчиной, 1922 год....