Steve Martin Quotes
- All Quotes
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There's no better way to learn something than to learn it in front of an audience. Your terror drives you.
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I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines.
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The Matisse seemed to respond to the decreasing light by increasing its own wattage. Every object in the room was drained of color, but the Matisse stood firm in the de-escalating illumination, its beauty turning functionality inside out, making itself a more practical and useful presence than anything else in sight.
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[her] mind blackens. The blackness is not a thought, but if it could be pressed into a thought, if a chemical from a dropper could be dripped onto it causing its color and essence to become visible, it would take the shape of this sentence: Why does no one want me?
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I just downloaded eleven hundred books onto my Kindle, and now I can’t lift it.
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Be undeniably good. When people ask me how do you make it in show business or whatever, what I always tell them & nobody ever takes note of it 'cause it's not the answer they wanted to hear-what they want to hear is here's how you get an agent, here's how you write a script, here's how you do this-but I always say, “Be so good they can't ignore you.” If somebody's thinking, “How can I be really good?” people are going to come to you. It's much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties.
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Art as an aesthetic principle was supported by thousands of years of discernment and psychic rewards, but art as a commodity was held up by air. The loss of confidence that affected banks and financial instruments was not affecting cherubs, cupids and flattened popes. The objects hadn't changed: what was there before was there after. But a vacancy was created with the clamoring crowds deserted and retrenched.
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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.
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I think there are people out there writing original bluegrass songs, but it's hard to get them out on the air.
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I'm always looking for something to engage my imagination and take me on a little mental voyage. I just want a new topic in my life.
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I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.
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I was not naturally talented. I didn't sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.
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The thing about the banjo is when you first hear it, it strikes many people as what's that? There's something very compelling about it to certain people.
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Performing music is a way to do comedy, but without the obligation to do a solid hour, hour and half of a standup. I could intersperse it with music, so it became a really good format for me.
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Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.
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...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.
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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.
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With a cheery delicacy she divided my obsessions into three categories: acceptable, unacceptable, and hilarious.
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The environment changed with Martha Stewart and Enron.
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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.
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It was so sweet backstage, you should have seen it - The Teamsters were helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo.
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Halle Berry is here, whose win last year broke down barriers for unbelievably hot women.
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It's not tipping I believe in. It's overtipping.
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Acting keeps me alert to people, and life. I don't know, there's something about going to work early in the morning, and having to stay alert and concentrated. Maybe that keeps your mind alive.