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'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.

-Steve Martin

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'dirty Rotten Scoundrels' Is

Steve Martin

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'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.

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Acting Has Helped Me Understand People, Not Only Because You Are Acting As A Character, But Also Because You Are Watching Other Actors Work. That Really Helps You Identify In Life When Someone Is Acting, Not Being True.

So, While Fitting In, She Was Like A Wicked Detail Standing Out Against A Placid Background.

I Believe You Should Place A Woman On A Pedestal: High Enough So You Can Look Up Her Dress.

I Started A Grease Fire At Mcdonald's - Threw A Match In The Cook's Hair.

I'm Not Vegas. Places I Play Usually Cost Like $3 To Get In, You Know, And People Are Going: Gee, I've Got $3, I Think I'll Throw It Away.

...a Young Man, Jamaican, Perhaps, His Head Circled In A Scarf With Sunbleached Dreadlocks On Piled On Top, Looking Like A Plate Of Soft-shell Crabs.

I Loved Doing 'pennies From Heaven.' Because You Have To Understand That I'd Been Doing Comedy For 15 To 20 Years, And Suddenly Along Came The Opportunity To Do This Beautiful Film. It Was So Emotional To Me. I Loved It. I Don't Think It Was A Good Career Move, But I Have No Regrets About Doing It.

A Girl Who Is Willing To Give Every Ounce Of Herself To Someone, Who Could Never Betray Her Lover, Who Never Suspects Maliciousness Of Anyone, And Whose Sexuality Sleeps In Her, Waiting To Be Stirred.

I Wish I Could Do A Lot Of Things Different. I'm Not Going To Tell You What They Are, But If I Had A List Of All My Films Right Now, I'd Go, 'okay, I'll Cross That One Out And Cross That One Out And Cross That One Out And Cross That One Out.' Really. But I've Made Over 40 Films. How Can I Not Have Some Losers In There?

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.

Lord Loves A Workin' Man; Don't Trust Whitey

I Think There Are People Out There Writing Original Bluegrass Songs, But It's Hard To Get Them Out On The Air.

They Want Me On The Television Shows Now Because I Did So Well On Celebrity Assholes.

...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.

Thankfully, Perseverance Is A Good Substitute For Talent.

I Just Believe That The Interesting Time In A Career Is Pre-success, What Shaped Things, How Did You Get To This Point.

It's Pain That Changes Our Lives.

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.

When I First Started Doing My Comedy Act, I Just Desperately Needed Material. So I Took Literally Everything I Knew How To Do On Stage With Me, Which Was Juggling, Magic And Banjo And My Little Comedy Routines. I Always Felt The Audience Sorta Tolerated The Serious Musical Parts While I Was Doing My Comedy.

I Took Literally Everything I Knew How To Do On Stage With Me, Which Was Juggling, Magic And Banjo And My Little Comedy Routines.

With Comedy, You Have No Place To Go But More Comedy, So You're Never Off The Hook.

You Cannot Make Your Opportunities Concur With The Opportunities Of People Whose Incomes Are Ten Times Greater Than Yours.

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!

If You Saw Her In These Moments, You Might Think She Was Collecting Her Thoughts In Order To Go Forward. But I See It Another Way: Her Mind Is Being Overwhelmed By Two Processes That Must Simultaneously Proceed At Full Steam. One Is To Deal With And Live In The Present World. The Other Is To Re-experience And Mourn Something That Happened Long Ago. It Is As Though Her Lightness Pulls Her Toward Heaven, But The Extra Gravity Around Her Keeps Her Earthbound.

I Can Understand The Drug Thing. So They Feel That It's More Important To Take The Drugs Than To Do A Good Show For The People.

When I Was In College, I Was Debating To Try My Hand At Show Business, Or To Become A Professor. I Just Thought Of The Risk Of Not Going Into Show Business And Always Wondering If I Would've Had A Chance. Because That's Where My Real Heart Was.

The Streets Of L.a. Undulate Over Short Hills As Though A Finger Is Poking The Landscape From Underneath ... Laid Over This Crosshatch Are Streets Meandering On The Diagonal Creating A Multitude Of Ways To Get From One Place To Another By Traveling Along The Hypotenuse. These Are The Avenues Of The Tryst Which Enable Acting Student A To Travel The Eighteen Miles Across Town To Acting Student B's Garage Apartment In Nine Minutes Flat After A Hot-blooded Phone Call At Midnight.

Or Is It That I Think Too Much?

The Conscious Mind Is The Editor, And The Subconscious Mind Is The Writer.

No Matter How Many Times People Say It - 'oh, I'm Just Writing This For Myself' 'oh, I'm Just Doing This For Myself' - Nobody's Doing It For Themselves! You're Doing It For An Audience. So Whether I'm Performing Or Writing A Book Or Playing Music, It's Definitely To Be Put Out There And To Be Received In Some Way, Definitely.

To Be With Another Woman, That Is French. To Be Caught, That Is American.

I Cannot Smell Mothballs Because It's So Difficult To Get Their Little Legs Apart.

She Looked Down Again And I Was Stymied. I Sat. Oh, This Was Enough To Make Me Love Her, Because I Was Right With Her, Understanding Every Second And Longing To Step In. I Didn’t Even Need To Know The Specific That Was Troubling Her, Because To Me Her Halting Voice Easily Stood For The General Woe That Hangs In The Air, Even On Life’s Happiest Days.

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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If He Thinks He Would Harm Mirabelle, He Would Back Away. But He Does Not Yet Understand When And How People Are Hurt. 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.

First The Doctor Told Me The Good News: I Was Going To Have A Disease Named After Me.

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...the Divided World Of Aspen, Where Locals With A Sense Of Entitlement Were Pitted Against Developers With A Sense Of Condominiums.

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You Want To Be A Bit Compulsive In Your Art Or Craft Or Whatever You Do.

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I Take Editing Seriously. It's A Joy To Edit. I Always Hand A Manuscript To Several Editors And Can't Wait To Get Back Their Notes And See What They've Said. I Don't Criticize Myself For Making Blunders Here And There, Because It's Just Natural. You Write In Chunks, And You May Not Remember That That Sentence You Wrote Yesterday Had The Same Word Repeated Three Times. I Do Enjoy That. I Love The Feeling Of Repairing. Repairing Is Really Nice.

The Teen Years Are Extremely Serious And Everything Matters And Every Insult Really Hurts. I Know There Are Cliques And Bullying. And You Don't Yet understand That It Will All Go Away.

Anyone Who's Ever Worked With Meryl Streep Always Says The Same Thing: Can That Woman Act! And What's With All The Hitler Memorabilia?

My Fear Represented The Failure Of The Human System. It Is A Sad Truth Of Our Creation: Something Is Amiss In Our Design, There Are Loose Ends Of Our Psychology That Are Simply Not Wrapped Up. My Fears Were The Dirty Secrets Of Evolution. They Were Not Provided For, And I Was Forced To Construct Elaborate Temples To House Them.

How To Make A Million Dollars: First, Get A Million Dollars

I Love Animated Films When They Are Good, Because They Do Bring A Lot Of Emotion And Heart That's Very Difficult To Get In A Live Action Film.

When Your Hobbies Get In The Way Of Your Work - That's Ok; But When Your Hobbies Get In The Way Of Themselves... Well.

The Bluegrass Community... Can Be Very Strict. I Didn't Know If I'd Be Welcomed Into The Bluegrass Community Or Not, But I Think They Judge You Very Fairly... I Felt Really Welcome.

You Know That Look That Women Get When They Want To Have Sex? Me Neither.

If You're Studying Geology, Which Is All Facts, As Soon As You Get Out Of School You Forget It All, But Philosophy You Remember Just Enough To Screw You Up For The Rest Of Your Life.

I've Been Writing For A Long Time, Since The Late '60s. But It Hasn't Been In The Same Form. I Used To Write Scripts For Television. I Wrote For My Comedy Act. Then I Wrote Screenplays, And Then I Started Writing New Yorker Essays, And Then I Started Writing Plays. I Didn't Start Writing Prose, Really, Until The New Yorker Essays, But They Were Comic. I Didn't Start Writing Prose, Really, Until The '90s. In My Head, There Was A Link Between Everything. One Thing Led To Another.

Why Sip From A Tea Cup, When You Can Drink From The River.

I Did Stand-up Comedy For 18 Years. Ten Of Those Years Were Spent Learning, Four Years Were Spent Refining, And Four Years Were Spent In Wild Success. I Was Seeking Comic Originality, And Fame Fell On Me As A Byproduct. The Course Was More Plodding Than Heroic.

As A School Board We Felt It's An Unfair Expense To Families. The Lawsuit Has A Certain Logic To It - If You Have Free Public Education, You Can't Put These Things On Top Of It. It Defeats The Purpose.

Reviews For Someone Like Me Come In Three Packages. One Is Justifiable Praise, The Second Is Justifiable Criticism, And The Third Is, "this Is Only Published Because He's A Celebrity."

You Can't Really Conduct Your Life By One Or Two Phrases.

Acting Is Collaborative Because You Are Working With Another Actor, And It's Almost Like A Two-man Juggling Team. You Have To Really Be In Sync.

The Conscious Mind Is The Editor, And The Subconscious Mind Is The Writer. And The Joy Of Writing, When You're Writing From Your Subconscious, Is Beautiful - It's Thrilling. When You're Editing, Which Is Your Conscious Mind, It's Like Torture.

I Would Get Records By Earl Scruggs... I Would Tune My Banjo Down And I'd Pick Out The Songs Note By Note. Learned How To Play That Way. I Persevered. There Was A Book Written By Pete Seeger, Who Showed You Some Basic Strumming And Some Basic Picking... And I Kind Of Worked Out My Own Style Of Playing.

I Don't Watch Myself Generally. I Do Something, See It Once, And Then I'll Probably Never See It Again Unless It's An Accident.

I've Got To Keep Breathing. It'll Be My Worst Business Mistake If I Don't.

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.

It's Not Tipping I Believe In. It's Overtipping.

You Know When You're Telling These Little Stories? Here's A Good Idea: Have A Point. It Makes It So Much More Interesting For The Listener!

I Just Respected Comedians Whether They Were Or They Weren't, From, You Know, New Or Old.

She Had Destroyed Whatever Was Between Us By Making A Profound Gaffe: She Met Me.

Comedy Is A Distortion Of What Is Happening, And There Will Always Be Something Happening.

When I First Started Doing My Stand-up Act, I Played The Banjo, Did Comedy, Magic Tricks, Juggled, Read Poetry. I Stuck It All In. I Didn't Know You Were Supposed To Just Stand Up And Tell Jokes. Essentially, That's What My Act Became: Those Five Elements - Except I Dropped The Poetry.

There Is One Thing I Would Break Up Over, And That Is If She Caught Me With Another Woman. I Won't Stand For That.

I Was Not Self-destructive, Though I Almost Destroyed Myself. In The End, I Turned Away From Stand-up With A Tired Swivel Of My Head...

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.

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.

I Love Doing My Surreal Sing-along That Had Words That No One Could Follow.

I Ignored My Stand-up Career For Twenty-five Years, But Now, Having Finished This Memoir, I View This Time With Surprising Warmth. One Can Have, It Turns Out, An Affection For The War Years.

It Was Essential That I Never Show Doubt About What I Was Doing.

Well, Today The Grammys Is Much Much Better Than The Oscars. I Think The Differences In The Shows Are That The Grammys Are Much Wilder. The Oscars Is Much More People In The Industry. And People Dress Wilder, I Think, At The Grammys.

At First I Had No Skills In Writing Comedy. I Didn't Know What A Joke Was, But, As Someone Once Told Me, Your Emotions Follow Your Intent. If You Create The Intention Of Starting A Comedy Act, Slowly Your Mind Starts Adjusting And You Arrive At A New Emotional State.

I Feel Good About Being Able To Take Bluegrass On To Television Like 'letterman' And 'the View,' And I've Heard Nice Things About Being Able To Do That. I Really Haven't Felt Any Negativity Toward Me Or My Music.

If I Screw Up Raising My Kids, Nothing I Achieve Will Matter Much.

I've Run Into People In My Life Who Were So Dramatic; People Who Are So Extreme And So Frustrating To Be Around That You End Up Thinking About Them And Talking About Them For Literally Years After Your Experience With Them Is Over.

A Kiss May Not Be The Truth, But It Is What We Wish Were True.

For A While, Mirabelle Believes There Will Be A Moment When He Will Cave In And Let Himself Love Her, But Eventually She Lets The Idea Go. She Hits Bottom. She Dwells In The Muck For Several Months, Not Depressed Exactly, But Involved In A Mourning That At First She Thinks Is For Ray But Soon Realizes Is For The Loss Of Her Old Self.

There's A Big Difference Between The National Book Awards And The Academy Awards. At The Academy Awards You Can Feel The Greed And Envy And Ego. Whereas The National Book Awards Are In New York.

I Am A Wild And Crazy Guy!

I Studied With The Maharishi For Many Years, And Really Didn't Learn That Much. But One Thing That He Taught Me, I'll Never Forget: 'always...' No, Wait-- 'never...' No, Wait, It Was 'always Carry A Litter Bag In Your Car. It Doesn't Take Up Much Room, And If It Gets Full, You Can Toss It Out The Window.'

I Just Downloaded Eleven Hundred Books Onto My Kindle, And Now I Can’t Lift It.

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.

Lacy Was Just As Happy Alone As With Company. When She Was Alone, She Was Potential; With Others She Was Realized.

I Had Loved Magic Tricks From The Time I Was Six Or Seven. I Bought Books On Magic. I Did Magic Acts For My Parents And Their Friends. I Was Aiming For Show Business From Early Days, And Magic Was The Poor Man's Way Of Getting In: You Buy A Trick For $2, And You've Got An Act.

I Got A Flue Shot And Now My Chimney Works Perfectly.

With Comedy, You Never Know Until You Put It In Front Of An Audience. You Shoot It And A Year Later You Have No Idea If It's Going To Work. And Then You Get The Response. It's Great When It's Good.

Romance Takes Place When You First Fall In Love. It Stirs All Emotions And You Can Manipulate And Be Manipulated.

Falling In Love

Being On Twitter Is Like Having A Fern.

Chaos In The Midst Of Chaos Isn't Funny, But Chaos In The Midst Of Order Is.

I Think I Did Pretty Well, Considering I Started Out With Nothing But A Bunch Of Blank Paper.

I'm Tired Of Wasting Letters When Punctuation Will Do, Period.

She Didn't Even Finish Her Last Sentence; It Just Trailed Off. I Think The Subject Had Changed In Her Head While Her Mouth Had Continued On The Old Topic, Not Realizing It Was Out Of Supplies.

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 Someway.

A Celebrity Is Any Well-known Tv Or Movie Star Who Looks Like He Spends More Than Two Hours Working On His Hair.

I Realized That Comedians Of The Day Were Operating On Jokes And Punch Lines. The Moment You Say The Punch Line, The Audience Either Laughs Sincerely Or They Laugh Automatically Or They Don't Laugh. The Thing That Bothered Me Was That Automatic Laugh. I Said, That's Not Real Laughter.

Now Let's Repeat The Non-conformists' Oath: I Promise To Be Different! I Promise To Be Unique! I Promise Not To Repeat Things Other People Say! Good!

... You're Nuts But You're Welcome Here.

Don't Have Sex Man. It Leads To Kissing And Pretty Soon You Have To Start Talking To Them.

I Saw The Movie, 'crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' And Was Surprised Because I Didn't See Any Tigers Or Dragons. And Then I Realized Why: They're Crouching And Hidden.

I Believe In Eight Of The Ten Commandments. I Believe In Going To Church Every Sunday... Unless There's A Game On.

I Always Think Back To My High School Days And Realize All The People Who Were So Popular Then Are Nowhere Now And All The People Who Were Steadfast And Steady-going Are Somewhere. So High School Doesn't Necessarily Translate To Later In Life.

My Most Persistent Memory Of Stand - Up Is Of My Mouth Being In The Present And My Mind Being In The Future: The Mouth Speaking The Line, The Body Delivering The Gesture, While The Mind Looks Back, Observing, Analyzing, Judging, Worrying, And Then Deciding When And What To Say Next. Enjoyment While Performing Was Rare - Enjoyment Would Have Been An Indulgent Loss Of Focus That Comedy Cannot Afford.

Always Do Business As If The Person You're Doing Business With Is Trying To Screw You, Because He Probably Is. And If He's Not, You Can Be Pleasantly Surprised.

The Only Thing That Bothers Me Is If I'm In A Restaurant And I'm Eating And Someone Says, 'hey, Mind If I Smoke?' I Always Say, 'no. Mind If I Fart?

I Didn't Worry If A Bit Got No Response, As Long As I Believed It Had Enough Response To Linger.

The Environment Changed With Martha Stewart And Enron.

Tweeting Is Really Only Good For One Thing - It's Just Good For Tweeting... It Is Rewarding, Because It's Just Its Own Reward. It's Sort Of Like Heaven.

It Eventually Appeared To Be Me, Cinematically. When I Was Writing It I Was Actually An Author, You Know, Writing A Book. ... But There Certainly Is A Difference In Energy Between A Younger Man And An Older Man.

She Was Feeling Her Bohemian Oats.

He Gave Her His Phone Number, In A Peculiar Reversal Of Dating Procedure. She Might Have Considered Kissing Him, Even After The Horrible First Date, But He Just Didn’t Seem To Know What To Do. However, Jeremy Does Have One Outstanding Quality. He Likes Her. And This Quality In A Person Makes Them Infinitely Interesting To The Person Who Is Being Liked.

What Means The Most To Me Changes Through The Years. There Was A Time When Movies Meant The Most. But When I'm Concentrating On A Project, That's What Means The Most To Me.

You Have To Get Comfortable [with Your Work], You Really Have To Know What You're Doing, And It Has To Be Almost Boring To You To Be Able To Do It Well.

I Thought Yesterday Was The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life But It Turns Out Today Is.

I Don't Think Comic Timing Is The Same As Music Timing, But I Definitely Find That I've Learned From Just Writing In General That Songs Can Be Narrative Without Having A Story.

I Think Probably The Most Difficult Challenge Was Just The Climb And Rise In Show Business Because I Went Through My Entire Twenties With Some Success As A Comedy Writer But Not Much As A Performer. And You Have To Be Kind Of Informed And Naive At The Same Time.

How Many People Have Never Raised Their Hand Before?

I Have Found That-- Just As In Real Life--imagination Sometimes Has To Stand In For Experience.

My Problem Is That I Don't Get The Same Exhiliration From Success As I Get Depression From Failure.

I Find Animated Movies Very Touching. They Reach An Audience That's Hard To Get With A Live-action Film.

It's Very Hard Sometimes When You Can't Crack Something Or Can't Solve Something And You Keep Trying And Trying And You Know It's Falling A Little Bit Short. That's Very Hard, But Then When You Finally Do It, It's Very Rewarding And The Process Is Good Too, I Like Working With People This Way.

I've Heard Lots Of People Lie To Themselves But They Never Fool Anyone.

The Course Was More Plodding Than Heroic: I Did Not Strive Valiantly Against Doubters But Took Incremental Steps Studded With A Few Intuitive Leaps.

Your Only Guidepost Is Your Own Instinct And Judicious Editing. In My Stand-up Act I Learned That In The First 10 Minutes I Could Say Anything And It Would Get A Laugh. Then I'd Better Deliver. In The Movie It's The Same Thing. You Get A Lot Of Laughs When People First Sit Down And Then The Story Better Kick In. Many Years In Front Of An Audience, I Would Hope, Give Me A Sense Of What Works.

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.

Whether I'm Involved In Creating Something Or Not, It's A Personal Issue Of Do I Respect It. But You Can Only Know That Five Or Ten Years Later.

She Tried To Get Even With Him Through Psychological Warfare But Couldn't, Because He Didn't Care.

Hosting The Oscars Is Much Like Making Love To A Woman. It's Something I Only Get To Do When Billy Crystal Is Out Of Town.

We've Taken What Was Just Once A Racetrack And Made It A Multifaceted Gaming Destination For The Entire Region.

I Believe Ronald Reagan Can Make This Country What It Once Was... An Arctic Region Covered With Ice.

The Overhead Lights Reflect In The Glass Countertop And Mingle In The Gray And Black Of The Gloves, Resulting In A Mother-of-pearl Swirl That Sometimes Sends Mirabelle Into A Shallow Hypnotic Dream.

I Can Juggle. I Started Juggling As A Kid. And When I Worked At Disneyland, I Knew A Juggler There Named Christopher Faire, And He Taught Me How To Juggle. I Used It In My Comedy Act For A While.

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.

After One Of My Plays Came Out, I Had Mixed Reviews, Some Bad And Some Good. One Day, It Dawned On Me. I Thought, 'i Wrote A Play And He Wrote A Review, And That's The Difference Between Him And Me.'

Always...no Wait...never.

So Much Emotion Can Be Brought In An Animated Film That's Very Hard To Get In A Live-action Film. I Haven't Quite Put My Finger On Why, But It Might Be Because The Characters Can Make Facial Expression That, If You Made Them In A Movie, They'd Call Them Corny.

Be So Good They Can't Ignore You.

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.

I Can't Smell Moth Balls, I Find It Too Difficult To Get Their Tiny Legs Apart

Awards Mean Nothing To Comedians. What Matters Is The Audience, How You're Doing - Artistically, For The Most Part - At That Moment.

I'm Trying To Think Of Other Ones. Oh, Yeah, I'd Say - Somebody Would Buy Something And We'd Say, And Because You Are Our Hundredth Customer Today, You Get A Free Paperback.

Hollywood Must Be The Only Place On Earth Where You Can Be Fired By A Man Wearing A Hawaiian Shirt And A Baseball Cap.

Kids Like My Act Because I'm Wearing Nose Glasses. Adults Like My Act Because There's A Guy Who Thinks Putting On Nose Glasses Is Funny.

Always Make Room For The Unexpected In Yourself.

In My Banjo Show With The Steep Canyon Rangers, I Do Do Comedy During That Show. It'd Be Absurd Just To Stand There Mute And Play 25 Banjo Songs.

There Are Some People That Will Not Pick Up A Phone And Call You, But If You Knock On A Door And Talk To Them, They'll Talk Back To You.

Through The Years, I Have Learned There Is No Harm In Charging Oneself Up With Delusions Between Moments Of Valid Inspiration.

I Hope People Find My Movies Funny And Will Watch Them Years From Now. And, In Terms Of Writing, I Hope That Something Remains That Will Not Seem Old-fashioned, That Will Still Have A vibrancy To It 50 Years From Now.

Any Type Of Humor Can Be Transferred To The Screen, As Long As There's Clarity. The Audience Wants To Know Just What They're Supposed To Be Feeling, When They're Supposed To Laugh.

Love Is A Promise Delivered Already Broken.

I Really Like The Animated Film Process. It's Kind Of Like Doing A Play, Because You Can Experiment With It, Rewrite It, Screen It, Go Back, Then Work On It A Little Bit More. If The Joke Doesn't Work, You Can Fix It. It's Different From A Live Action Movie.

Deeply Funny Musings And Adventures Elevate Paul Rudnick To The Highest Level Of American Comedy Writing.

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.

Boy, Those French: They Have A Different Word For Everything!

To Me, Torture Would Be, "i Can't Think What To Write In The Next Sentence. I'm Stuck." Torture Would Be If You Didn't Have The Next Idea.

There's Someone Out There For Everyone - Even If You Need A Pickaxe, A Compass, And Night Goggles To Find Them.

An Apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath The Dignity Of Any Gentleman, However Wrong He Might Be.

I Would Assign Every Lie A Color: Yellow When They Were Innocent, Pale Blue When They Sailed Over You Like The Sky, Red Because I Knew They Drew Blood. And Then There Was The Black Lie. That's The Worst Of All. A Black Lie Was When I Told You The Truth.

Writing Is Extremely Personal, And That's The Joy Of It For Me.

Women Have Choices, And Men Have Responsibilities.

To Have Someone Play Off And Be With A Band Is More Pleasurable.

I Loved Magic, And So I Would Practice My Magic Tricks In Front Of A Mirror For Hours And Hours And Hours Because I Was Told That You Must Practice, You Must Practice And Never Present A Trick Before It's Ready.

Some People Have A Way With Words, And Other People...oh, Uh, Not Have Way.

Unlike Ray Porter, His Love Is Fearless And Without Reservation.

I Don't Think Anyone Is Ever Writing So That You Can Throw It Away. You're Always Writing It To Be Something. Later, You Decide Whether It'll Ever See The Light Of Day. But At The Moment Of Its Writing, It's Always Meant To Be Something. So, To Me, There's No Practicing; There's Only Editing And Publishing Or Not Publishing.

'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.

I Never Touched A Gun In My Life. That And That Alone Forever Doomed Me To Middle Management.

Middle Management

Private Companies Have A Lot Of Capital. They Can Run Things Efficiently And Get Projects Built.

You Know, You're Really Nobody In L.a. Unless You Live In A House With A Really Big Door.

When People Ask Me, ‘how Do You Make It In Show Business,’ Or Whatever, What I Always Tell Them — And Nobody Ever Takes Note Of It ‘cuz It’s Not The Answer They Wanted To Hear…but I Always Say, ‘be So Good They Can’t Ignore You.’

Were They Beautiful? We Were All Beautiful. We Were In Our Twenties.

Home To Me Is When Someone Comes Up To Me And Says, "can I Get A Selfie?" No. It's Where Your Wife And Your Family Are. It's The Emotional Place Where You Feel Like You're Not Away From It.

When I Die, Now Don't Think That I'm A Nut, Don't Want No Fancy Funeral, Just One Like Old King Tut.

I'm For The Wall Street Occupiers. But Will They Accept Me When They Find Out I Sell Packaged Mortgage Default Instruments To Children?

Communication Has Changed So Rapidly In The Last 20 Years, It's Almost Impossible To Predict What Might Occur Even In The Next Decade. E-mail, Which Now Sends Data Hurtling Across Vast Distances At The Speed Of Light, Has Replaced Primitive Forms Of Communication Such As Smoke Signals, Which Sent Data Hurtling Across Vast Distances At The Speed Of Light.

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