Steve Martin Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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My favorite book in life is 'A Wrinkle In Time,' which I read before high school. It was my first introduction into the meeting of science and spirit and the universe and big thoughts and all of those interesting New Age-y concepts. It made everything make sense to me and opened up my mind.
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A novelist's lack of awareness of and critical distance to his own body of work is due to a phenomenon that I have noticed in myself and many others: as soon as it is written, every new book erases the last one, leaving me with the impression that I have forgotten it.
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A subject which at first glance seems quite removed from the undeclared concern of the book can encapsulate that concern.
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Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.
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A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be. It has to be authoritative. That's what I want as a reader - I want to be confident that the book will do its job.
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Wagner's philosophy had absolutely nothing to do with Bruckner. Bruckner hadn't written a single word against Jews. Wagner's book on the Jews was one of the most infamous books of the 19th century.
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For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.
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Is 'The Wind in the Willows' a children's book? Is 'Alice in Wonderland?' Is 'Treasure Island?' These are masterpieces which we read with pleasure as children, but with how much more pleasure when we are grown-up.
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I've had people turn up to book signings with knives, with guns.
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My rule of writing is that no one can do what you can do, so jealousy or competitiveness are pointless. I am always happy when one of my sisters has a book published that I get to read.
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Because they feel that without them telling you to do this, you wouldn't have had the characters that you have, you wouldn't have the book that you have.
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An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot. The logical end of a war of creeds is the final destruction of one, and Salammbo is the classical text-book instance.
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I felt that one of the things God impressed on me was that I needed to start a nonprofit corporation, so that any money that came my way, whether it was an honorarium, a book sale or a gift, would go into a nonprofit ministry.
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I have not been in a book club where there were any men, and I have not, in fact, heard of book groups that were mixed.
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I tell people that life is like a book. Sometimes you've just got to turn the chapter. Even if you don't understand it, turn the chapter and move away from it. You don't know all the good things that are ahead of you yet.
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If we are to put a stop to corruption and state capture, those responsible must be brought to book.
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When I was 8 years old, I made my own encyclopedia of American biography - Johnny Appleseed, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Charles Lindbergh, my pantheon of favorite heroes. Then I would write my own things and sew them together and try to make my own book.
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I was very fortunate that my first novel captivated the imaginations of so many readers who asked for a sequel. After that, one book led to another as I discovered other facets to my characters I wanted to investigate further.
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I tend to push whatever is looking over my shoulder away when I am writing. It's once the box of books arrive that I say I'm going to be pilloried for this or that. But then you realize it's done, and there is nothing I can do. I'm proud of the book.
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I wanted to get my coaching badges after retiring, and I asked to take the exam, but they told me I needed to study for four years. I told them they were crazy. Who is going to study for four years? How is someone going to teach me technical things when I know more than they do?
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When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
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In my belief, a harvest is also a legacy, for very often what you reap is, in the way of small miracles, more than you consciously know you have sown.
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I am neither Christian enough nor charitable enough to like anybody just because he is alive and breathing. I want people to interest or amuse me. I want them fascinating and witty or so dul as to be different. I want them either intellectually stimulating or wonderfully corny; perfectly charming or hundred percent stinker. I like my chosen companions to be distinguishable from the undulating masses and I don't care how.
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I just downloaded eleven hundred books onto my Kindle, and now I can’t lift it.