“When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well.”
Work
“I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.”
FunnyAll Quotes by Steve Martin
“Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!”
Funny“I like all kinds of music. I listen to Abigail Washburn, the Punch Brothers, and Marc Johnson, the great clawhammer player. I also listen a lot to Sirius Radio, there's a lot of bluegrass there.”
Music“I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.”
Art“I'm enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.”
Art“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... I've had people come up to me and say, 'We want to remake 'The Jerk' with so and so.' And I say, 'Fine.' It just doesn't bother me. It's an honor actually.”
Change“I've always believed that there are funny people everywhere, but they're just not comedians. In fact, some of my best comedic inspirations were not professional entertainers.”
Best“What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.”
Art“There's a lot of thought in art. People get to talk about important things. There's a lot of sex, you know, in art. There's a lot of naked women and men, and there's intrigue, there's fakery. It's a real microcosm of the larger world.”
Art“Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.”
Business“You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do.”
Art“You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies.”
Life“I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.”
Business“Throughout my whole life, as a performer, I've never played with a band. I've always played alone, so I was never required to stay in rhythm or anything. So it was a real different experience for me to start playing with a band. There were so many basic things for me to learn.”
Alone“I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it's 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.”
Alone“'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' is a good one because it not only turned out, I think, to be a really funny movie but it was also a delight to shoot. We were in the South of France, working with Glenne Headly and Michael Caine and Frank Oz the director - who were just fun.”
Funny“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 some way.”
Truth“Everything is fraught with danger. I love technology and I love science. It's just always all in the way you use it. So there's no - you can't really blame anything on the technology. It's just the way people use it, and it always has been.”
Science“Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I'd do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.”
Home“Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.”
Funny