Steve Martin Quotes

"I love the process of writing. It's the only time I feel completely honest with myself."

"There is a great joy in doing something as well as you can, even if no one ever sees the effort."

"The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need. My name in print. That really makes somebody. Things are going to start happening to me now! As Navin R. Johnson in The Jerk (1979)"

"I think the most important thing for any artist is to have a point of view."

"I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks."

"There is a certain kind of sadness that only comes when you've achieved everything you thought would make you happy."

"Persistence is a great substitute for talent. If you stay true to your path long enough, the world catches up."

"Comedy is a tool of exploration. It's a way of looking at the world and saying, 'This doesn't make sense, but I'm going to make it work.'"

"A lot of people think that if they're famous, they're successful. But success is doing the thing you love well, with no shortcuts."

"I saw that the audience was a machine that could be manipulated."

"Isolation is a dangerous thing for a creative mind, yet it is the very thing we often crave when we are hurting."

"I wanted to be a performer, but I had to become a writer to give myself something to perform."

"There is a profound difference between being alone and being lonely, but for a long time, I couldn't tell them apart."

"It's not the gift of a tongue, it's the gift of a mind."

"I didn't want to be a star; I wanted to be a craftsman."

"I used to think that if I reached the top, the anxiety would vanish. But the top is just a higher place to fall from."

"Why is it we don't always recognize the moment when love begins, but we always know when it ends? As Harris K. Telemacher in L.A. Story (1991)"

"I've always been interested in the idea of the professional. Someone who just goes in and does the job regardless of how they feel."

"I found that art was the only thing that could speak to the parts of me that words couldn't reach."

"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."

"You have to be willing to be bad before you can be good."

"I did stand-up for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success. I never cheated the process."

"Integrity is when your internal monologue matches your external actions."

"Anxiety is the price you pay for being too aware of all the things that could possibly go wrong."

"Now let's repeat the non-conformists' oath: I promise to be different! [audience repeats] I promise to be unique! [audience repeats] I promise not to repeat things other people say! [audience repeats, laughs] Good!"

"Artistic integrity is about knowing when to stop listening to the critics and start listening to the banjo."

"You kill me and I'll see that you never work in this town again. As Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr in The Man with Two Brains (1983)"

"I've always felt that the work is the reward. The success is just a byproduct."

"The thing about depression is that it's a very slow process; it's not a sudden cliff, but a long, sloping hill into the dark."

"Comedy is not pretty."

"The only way to learn is to do it in front of people."

"The mind is a beautiful thing, but it's also a very dangerous thing if you don't have a moral compass to guide it."

"I wanted to be a philosopher, but I was too happy."