Steve Martin

"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!"

"All of a sudden I had to remember some words that Marlowe had told me over fifteen years ago: "Dead men don't wear plaid." Hmm... Dead men don't wear plaid. I still don't know what it means."

"You kill me and I'll see that you never work in this town again."

"A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true."

"Why is it we don't always recognize the moment when love begins, but we always know when it ends?"

"Hosting the Oscars is like making love to a beautiful woman — it's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal's out of town."

"I handed in a script last year and the studio didn't change one word. The word they didn't change was on page 87."

"It was so sweet backstage, you should have seen it — The Teamsters were helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."

"People come up to me and say "Steve, what is film editing?" And I say "How should I know? You're the director.""

"You know, a lot of people come to me and they say: "Steve, how can you be so fucking funny?" There's a secret to it, it's no big deal. Before I go out, I put a slice of bologna in each of my shoes. So when I'm on stage, I feel funny."

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

"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!"

"It's so hard to believe in anything anymore, you know what I mean? It's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, 'cause it seems so mythological, and seems so arbitrary; and then on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. — I guess I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch. [Audience member]: What's your mood watch say? Martin: Yeah, I remember when I had my first beer."

"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 mid-afternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning … But never at dusk! Never at dusk, I would never do that."

"Comedy is not pretty."

"Steve Martin came around for a barbecue once. I was grilling and he said, "Oh, no, I can’t have any of that." I asked why not and he said, "Sorry, I'm vegetarian." I said, "You didn’t know we are?! Everything on the grill is veggie!" He said, "Ahhh" and ate three veggie burgers and then asked where he could buy them."

"(What’s your favorite book by a comedian?) It’s a tossup between Charlie Murphy’s The Making of a Stand-Up Guy and Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up. Both books capture the business incredibly well."