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

-Steve Martin

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I Believe In Eight

Steve Martin

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

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[her] Mind Blackens. The Blackness Is Not A Thought, But If It Could Be Pressed Into A Thought, If A Chemical From A Dropper Could Be Dripped Onto It Causing Its Color And Essence To Become Visible, It Would Take The Shape Of This Sentence: Why Does No One Want Me?

How Many People Have Never Raised Their Hand Before?

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.

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.

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

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

Falling In Love

The Matisse Seemed To Respond To The Decreasing Light By Increasing Its Own Wattage. Every Object In The Room Was Drained Of Color, But The Matisse Stood Firm In The De-escalating Illumination, Its Beauty Turning Functionality Inside Out, Making Itself A More Practical And Useful Presence Than Anything Else In Sight.

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.’

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

I'm 48. For A While After 'the Jerk' (movie) I Had A Feeling Of Failure. I Was A Little Scared. First People Discover You And They Love You. You Get Big And Then You Fail. And People Are Glad That You Fail. But I've Always Come Back And I've Started To Trust Myself.

Dinosaurs Did Not Walk With Humans. The Evolutionary Record Says Different. They Gambled.

You Want To Know How I Think Art Should Be Taught To Children? Take Them To A Museum And Say, 'this Is Art, And You Can't Do It.

I Guess I Wouldn't Believe In Anything If It Weren't For My Lucky Astrology Mood Watch.

Knowledge Of Means Without Knowledge Of Ends Is Animal Training.

I Think When The Movie `roxanne' Came Out, Which I Also Had Written, I Felt Something New That I Never Felt, Which Was Respect.

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

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

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

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

These Days It's Hard To Look At A Poodle Without Thinking What A Good Meal He Would Make.

Halle Berry Is Here, Whose Win Last Year Broke Down Barriers For Unbelievably Hot Women.

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

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

Relationships End, But They Don't End Your Life.

Bad Relationship

Relationships Ending

Failed Relationship

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 Could Never Be A Woman, 'cause I'd Just Stay Home And Play With My Breasts All Day.

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.

I Try Not To Think About Legacy Because It Is All folly. If You Study History, Even Recent History, You'll Find Many People Who Were Quite Significant In Their Time But Are Completely Forgotten.

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.

What Is A Movie Star? A Movie Star Is Many Things. They Can Be Tall, Short, Thin, Or Skinny. They Can Be Democrats... Or Skinny.

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

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.

When The Person Beside You Is Making You Alert And Keen And The Idea Of Being With Anyone Else Is Not Imaginable.

I Do Think That Animated Films Have The Ability To Touch You Someplace. There Is Something About Live Action Movies That Is Different Because We Know The Characters Are Real People, So They Always Stay Flawed For Us Somehow. But Animated Films Touch Us In A Very Clear, Uncomplicated Place. They Have That Ability. And An Animated Character Can Make An Expression In A Way Humans Can't Do.

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

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

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 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.

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.

Working At The Magic Shop Really Gave Me A Sense Of Comedy Because It Was All Jokes.

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?

In My Opening Seconds, I Would Say, "it's Great To Be Here," Then Move To Several Other Spots On The Stage And Say, "no, It's Great To Be Here!" I Would Move Again: "no, It's Great To Be Here!

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.

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

The Self-prepared Dinner Is A Great Time Killer For Lonely People And As Much Time Should Be Spent On It As Possible.

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.

I Was Seeking Comic Originality, And Fame Fell On Me As A Byproduct.

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.

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

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

I Was Deeply Unhappy, But I Didn't Know It Because I Was So Happy All The Time.

A Day With Out Sun Shine Is Like..........night

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

I Happened To Take A Photo, And There Was My Wife, My Dog And My Banjo, All In The Same Shot - And I Thought, "oh, That's Like A Family Portrait Right There."

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

I Thought If I Had A Twitter Feed And Say I Had A Following Of A 100,000, That Means 100,000 Of Them Would Be Interested In My Book. It Was Logical, But It Didn't Turn Out To Be True. It Turned Out If I Had A Twitter Feed Of A 100,000, Four Of Them Were Interested In My Book.

When You're Touring And If You Go To A Party, There's Automatically A Celebrity-audience Distance. It Follows You Around, Especially When You're On The Road In Small Towns. Any Time There Is Awe, It Gets Very Difficult To Be Normal, To Be Yourself. But I'm Not Saying That That's What Made Me The Way I Am. I've Probably Always Been Distant.

A Remarkable Memoir That's Packed With Anecdotes, Advice And Humor, All While Maintaining A High Level Of Dignity And Self-awareness.

Hello. I'm Hello, And I'd Like To Say Myself.

Comedians Don`t Get Oscars, So I Gave Up On That A Long Time Ago. And I Can`t Really Speak About The Oscar-worthiness Of My Own Performance.

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

I Really Enjoy The Social Aspects Of Music As Much As Anything.

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.

Different Experiences

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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."

He Never Complicates A Desire By Overthinking It, Unlike Mirabelle, Who Spins A Cocoon Around An Idea Until It Is Immobile.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I Believe That Sex Is One Of The Most Beautiful, Natural, Wholesome Things That Money Can Buy.

A Joke That Works Is Complete Knowledge In A Nanosecond.

You Know, There's A Moment When You're Famous When It's Unbearable To Go Out Because You're Too Famous. And Then There's A Moment When You're Famous Just Right.

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.

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.

The Banjo Is Truly An American Instrument, And It Captures Something About Our Past.

Mirabelle Replaces The Absent Friends With Books And Television Mysteries Of The Pbs Kind. The Books Are Mostly Nineteenth-century Novels In Which Women Are Poisoned Or Are Doing The Poisoning. She Does Not Read These Books As A Romantic Lonely Hearts Turning Pages In The Isolation Of Her Room, Not At All. She Is Instead An Educated Spirit With A Sense Of Irony. She Loves The Gloom Of These Period Novels, Especially As Kitsch, But Beneath It All She Finds That A Part Of Her Indentifies With All That Darkness.

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

It's Spooky To Look At Yourself, Because You Are Never Quite What You Think You Are. And You Are Never As Good Looking As The Person You Are Acting With, Or Something Like That. So I Learned To Stay Away From It Because It Was Giving Me More Negative Feelings Than Positive Ones.

It Is The Perfect Wrong Time For Jeremy To Do To Mirabelle What She Had Done To Him - Call Him Up For A Quick Fix - Because;, In A Sense, She Is Now Betrothed. Her First Date With Someone Who Treated Her Well Obligates Her To Faithfulness, At Least Until The Relationship Is Explored.

I Loved To Make People Laugh In High School, And Then I Found I Loved Being On Stage In Front Of People. I'm Sure That's Some Kind Of Ego Trip Or A Way To Overcome Shyness. I Was Very Kind Of Shy And Reserved, So There's A Way To Be On Stage And Be Performing And Balance Your Life Out.

I Have No Fear, No Fear At All. I Wake Up, And I Have No Fear. I Go To Bed Without Fear. Fear, Fear, Fear, Fear. Yes, 'fear' Is A Word That Is Not In My Vocabulary.

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.

Comedy Makes You Humble. Because There Are So Many Opportunities To Miss, And Strike Out.

A Friend Of Mine Once Asked How To Make It In Show Business And I Said "be So Good That They Can't Ignore You." She Thought I Was Being Flip But It's True. The Challenge Is Trying To Live Up To The Opportunities Given Me.

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.

Comedy May Be Big Business But It Isn't Pretty.

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.

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.

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

The Real Joy Is In Constructing A Sentence. But I See Myself As An Actor First Because Writing Is What You Do When You Are Ready And Acting Is What You Do When Someone Else Is Ready.

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

Anyway, Seeking Work Is A Tad Difficult Given The Poor Design Of The Streets With Their Prohibitive Curbs And Driveways That Don't Quite Line Up.

When You're Reaching For A Star, There's A Long Way To Fall.

I Just Gave My Cat A Bath. Now How Do I Get All This Fur Off My Tounge?

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.

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

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.

It Was So Sweet Backstage, You Should Have Seen It - The Teamsters Were Helping Michael Moore Into The Trunk Of His Limo.

What I Mean Is That None Of My Talents Had A - What's That Great Word - Rubric. A Singer, An Actor, A Dancer - There Was Nothing I Could Really Say I Was. The Writing Came Much Later. And, Actually, Thank God, Because If I Had Said I'm A Singer, I Would Really Have Just Had One Thing To Do.

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.'

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.

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

With A Cheery Delicacy She Divided My Obsessions Into Three Categories: Acceptable, Unacceptable, And Hilarious.

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.

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

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

Stand-up Life Is Really Hard. At One Point, I Got So Paralyzed I Could Write Five Screenplays Before I Could Write Three Jokes For Stand-up. Later, I've Finally Allowed Myself To Relax Quite A Bit, To Think I Can Do It Because I've Done It In The Past. The Pressure To Come Up With The Material Is The Same But The Anxiety About Whether I Can Do It Is Gone.

I Would Say The Three Stages Of Making A Film Are The Initial 'are We Gonna Do This,' 'how Much Will I Be Paid,' Is There A Lot Of Nights, Who's It Going To Be With? The Second Stage Of Doing A Film Is How Much Fun Your Going To Have Doing It. The Third Stage Is Was The Film A Hit?

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

Ah, Yes. I Remember My First Beer.

I'm Not A Human Being. I'm Despicable And Disgusting - But That's Where The Money Is.

If You Feel Tired Midway Through, Give Neil Patrick Harris A Red Bull And Throw Some Sheet Music At Him.

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

There Are Few Takers For The Quiet Heart.

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.

I Am A Wild And Crazy Guy!

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.

I'm The Leader Of The Platoon And I Run Gambling And Lotteries, Dances And I Sell Beer Illegally. I'm A Con Man And I'm Thoroughly Lovable.

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.

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

It Was Easier To Sell A Painting That Was Not For Sale.

The Apple Pie Hubbub Was A Significant Novel For Me, Because That's When I First Started Using Verbs.

So, I Can Hurt Now, Or Hurt Later.

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.

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

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...

It [live Performance] Is Just Very Difficult. Doing An Hour, Hour And A Half Of Live Standup Is An Endurance Test. You Almost Have To Do It Every Day To Stay Up On It.

No Art Comes From The Conscious Mind.

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

Thankfully, Perseverance Is A Good Substitute For Talent.

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.

Nothing I Do Is Done By Popular Demand.

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.

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.

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

Lots Of Women Are Getting Involved. They're Not Satisfied Just Being Passengers Anymore.

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

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.

You Can't Make Something Beautiful By Trying To Make Something Beautiful. Something Becomes Beautiful In The Process Of Trying To Be Something Else.

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 Knew I Wanted To Be In Comedy But The Path Of Least Resistance Was Doing Stand-up In Folk Music Clubs Where I Could Get On Stage. I Guess You Could Get Up No Matter How Bad You Were And You Didn't Have To Audition. You Just Got Up. Everything Else Required An Audition And If You Auditioned For A Tv Show, You Would Stand In Line With A Hundred Other People. But At The Clubs, It Was Okay Just To Get Up, So That's Why I Started In Stand-up.

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.

I Like A Woman With A Head On Her Shoulders. I Hate Necks.

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

I Was Raised With "laurel And Hardy" And "i Love Lucy" And Jerry Lewis, And I Just Loved It. And I Had A Friend In High School And We Would Just Laugh All Day And Put On Skits. You Know, It's The Andy Kaufman Thing Or The Marty Short Thing Where You're Performing In Your Bedroom For Yourself.

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

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!

Before You Criticize A Man, Walk A Mile In His Shoes. That Way, When You Do Criticize Him, You'll Be A Mile Away And Have His Shoes.

She Was Feeling Her Bohemian Oats.

Talent Is The Ability To Say Things Well, But Genius Is The Ability To, Well, Say Things.

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.

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.

I Think Communication Is So Firsbern.

Comedy Is Not Pretty.

I Don't Really Manage My Time. I Really Just Wait Until I'm Inspired To Do Something. And When I'm Inspired To Do Something, It Just Happens.

You Kill Me And I'll See That You Never Work In This Town Again.

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

I Really Enjoy Finding The Right Word, Creating A Good, Flowing Sentence. I Enjoy The Rhythm Of The Words.

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

Yeah, Well, We're All Writers, Aren't We? He's A Writer That Hasn't Been Published, And I'm A Writer Who Hasn't Written Anything.

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

I Used To Think A Wedding Was A Simple Affair. Boy And Girl Meet, They Fall In Love, He Buys A Ring, She Buys A Dress, They Say I Do. I Was Wrong. That's Getting Married. A Wedding Is An Entirely Different Proposition.

Falling In Love

So She Viewed Time Spent In The Land Of The Normal As An Investigation Into The World Of Marriage-worthy Men, Even If She Was Unsure About Her Own Interest In Marriage. There Must Be One Solid Citizen Who Also Had A Spark Of Life, A Sense Of Humor And Adventure.

I Just Don't Identify Myself With A Place. I Just Don't Get It. Like, Why Am I Cheering For This Town? Towns Are Good And Bad But They Don't Have Principles, Constitutions. You Wouldn't Go To War For Your Town.

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

Middle Management

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.

I Think Films Are About Having A Good Time, So I Don't Know That There's A Message. The Message Of A Film Is Always What A Critic Writes, And The Fun Of A Film Or The Emotion Of A Film Is What The Audience Feels.

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.

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.

. . . Now You See . . . They' Re Not Fit For Humans . . ." "put Them On Me.

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.

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.

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

I Opened The Show With This Line: "i Have Decided To Give The Greatest Performance Of My Life! Oh, Wait, Sorry, That's Tomorrow Night.

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.

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 Was Very Vulnerable To Criticism For Many Years. I Could Read A Bad Review And Remember It My Whole Life.

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.

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.

Being On Twitter Is Like Having A Fern.

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

Always Make Room For The Unexpected In Yourself.

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.

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

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.

Writing Is Something I Took Up Rather Than Anything I Had An Inclination Toward. I Like Acting -delivering Someone Else's Message - But Writing Is More Of An Accomplishment.

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.

I Actually Credit Twitter With Fine-tuning Some Joke-writing Skills. I Still Feel Like I'm Working At It.

Teaching Is, After All, A Form Of Show Business.

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.

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

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.

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