Mike > Mike's Quotes

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”
― Steve Martin

“Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.”
― Steve Martin

“... you're nuts but you're welcome here.”
― Steve Martin

“If you've got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've got 71 cents left; But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand. There's a math lesson for you.”
― Steve Martin

“...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, Shopgirl

“I've heard lots of people lie to themselves but they never fool anyone.”
― Steve Martin

“I gave my cat a bath the other day...they love it. He sat there, he enjoyed it, it was fun for me. The fur would stick to my tongue, but other than that...”
― Steve Martin

“She has learned that her body is precious and it mustn't be offered carelessly ever again, as it holds a direct connection to her heart.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“The banjo is such a happy instrument--you can't play a sad song on the banjo - it always comes out so cheerful.”
― steve martin

“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, The Pleasure of My Company

“I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.”
― Steve Martin

“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.”
― Steve Martin

“She tried to get even with him through psychological warfare but couldn't, because he didn't care.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.”
― Steve Martin

“Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naïveté, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“Somewhere in the world is...The world's worst doctor and he could be yours.”
― Steve Martin

“Or is it that I think too much?”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“Scientists at first were skeptical that a kitten-type being could exist in the rare Martian atmosphere. As a test, two Earth kittens were put in a chamber that simulated the Martian air. The diary of this experiment is fascinating:

6:00 A.M.: Kittens appear to sleep.
7:02 A.M.: Kitten wakes, darts from one end of cage to another for no apparent reason.

7:14 A.M.: Kitten runs up wall of cage, leaps onto other kitten for no apparent reason.

7:22 A.M.: Kitten lies on back and punches other kitten for no apparent reason.

7:30 A.M.: Kitten leaps, stops, darts left, abruptly stops, climbs wall, clings for two seconds, falls on head, darts right for no apparent reason.

7:51 A.M.: Kitten parses first sentence of daily newspaper that is at bottom of chamber.

With the exception of the parsing, all behavior is typical of Earth kitten behavior. The parsing activity, which was done with a small ball-point pen, was an anomaly.”
― Steve Martin, Pure Drivel

“I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening – or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . But never at dusk.”
― Steve Martin

“But Carroll's were more convoluted, and they struck me as funny in a new way:

1) Babies are illogical.
2) Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.
3) Illogical persons are despised.

Therefore, babies cannot manage crocodiles.

And:

1) No interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste.
2) No modern poetry is free from affectation.
3) All of your poems are on the subject of soap bubbles.
4) No affected poetry is popular among people of taste.
5) Only a modern poem would be on the subject of soap bubbles.

Therefore, all your poems are uninteresting.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“...My father muttered something to me, and I responded with a mumbled "What". He shouted, "You heard me," thundered up from his chair, pulled his belt out of its loops, and inflicted a beating that seemed never to end. I curled my arms around my body as he stood over me like a titan and delivered the blows. This was the only incident of its kind in our family. My father was never physically abusive toward my mother or sister and he was never again physically extreme with me. However, this beating and his worsening tendency to rages directed at my mother - which I heard in fright through the thin walls of our home - made me resolve, with icy determination, that only the most formal relationship would exist between my father and me, and for perhaps thirty years, neither he nor I did anything to repair the rift.

The rest of my childhood, we hardly spoke; there was little he said to me that was not critical, and there was little I said back that was not terse or mumbled. When I graduated from high school, he offered to buy me a tuxedo. I refused because I had learned from him to reject all aid and assistance; he detested extravagance and pleaded with us not to give him gifts. I felt, through a convoluted logic, that in my refusal, I was being a good son. I wish now that I had let him buy me a tuxedo, that I had let him be a dad. Having cut myself off from him, and by association the rest of the family, I was incurring psychological debts that would come due years later in the guise of romantic misconnections and a wrongheaded quest for solitude.

I have heard it said that a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts. I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know I am qualified to be a comedian.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.”
― Steve Martin

“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, Shopgirl

“If you occasionally wonder how I know about some of the events I describe in this book, I don't. I have found that--just as in real life--imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience.”
― Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty

“She started converting objects of beauty into objects of value.”
― Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty

“Be courteous, kind, and forgiving. Be gentle and peaceful each day. Be warm and human and grateful, And have a good thing to say. Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike, Be witty and happy and wise. Be honest and love all your neighbors, Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant. Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus. Be dull and boring and omnipresent. Criticize things you don’t know about. Be oblong and have your knees removed. Be sure to stop at stop signs, And drive fifty-five miles an hour. Pick up hitchhikers foaming at the mouth, And when you get home get a master’s degree in geology. Be tasteless, rude, and offensive. Live in a swamp and be three-dimensional. Put a live chicken in your underwear. Go into a closet and suck eggs.”
― Steve Martin

“Harder you Try, Luckier you get”
― Steve Martin

“The dictionary is a perfect example of overalphabetization, with its harsh rules and every little word neatly in place. It almost makes me want to go on a diet of grapes and waste away to nothing.”
― Steve Martin

“7 hour sleep diet worked great. Will power held beautifully.”
― Steve Martin