Background Image

...

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.

-Steve Martin

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Realized That Comedians

Steve Martin

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Steve Martin

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.

It's Like Painting The Same Blank Canvas Over And Over And Over And Over And Over. Once The Concept Is Known, You Don't Need To See Two. And That Was In The Back Of My Head, That I Was Really Done Artistically With What I Had Created Or Pastiched.

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

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.

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.

College Totally Changed My Life. It Changed What I Believe And What I Think About Everything. I Majored In Philosophy.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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."

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.

'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.

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

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.

Be So Good They Can't Ignore You.

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

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

I Thought 'borat' Was A Breakthrough Comedy, Because It Was Really Funny. It Wasn't Some Studio-produced Script With 14 Writers.

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.

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'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.

Nothing I Do Is Done By Popular Demand.

I've Decided To Take Up Smoking, My Doctor Said I Wasn't Getting Enough Tar.

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

The Emotions Of Men, However, Were Of A Different Order. They Were Pesky Annoyances, Small Dust Devils At Her Feet. Her Knack For Causing Heartbreak Was Innate, But Her Vitality Often Made People Forgive Her Romantic Misdeeds.

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.

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

A Day Without Sunshine Is Like, You Know, 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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Couldn't See His Face, Because The Light Came In From Behind Him And He Was In Shadow, And He Said, "i Am Picasso." And I Said, "well, So What?

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

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.

A Joke That Works Is Complete Knowledge In A Nanosecond.

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.

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.

A Father Carries Pictures Where His Money Used To Be.

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.

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.

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

The Environment Changed With Martha Stewart And Enron.

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

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.

The Thing About The Banjo Is When You First Hear It, It Strikes Many People As What's That? There's Something Very Compelling About It To Certain People.

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

People Come Up To Me And Say "steve, What Is Film Editing?" And I Say "how Should I Know? You're The Director.

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

How Is It Possible To Miss A Woman Whom You Kept At A Distance, So That When She Was Gone You Would Not Miss Her?

I Think Communication Is So Firsbern.

No Art Comes From The Conscious Mind.

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 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!

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

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.

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

I Was Always Very Shy But As I Get Older I Think, What Am I Being Shy For? You Just Grow Weary Of Your Own Hang-ups.

She Was Feeling Her Bohemian Oats.

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

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 Actually Learned About Sex Watching Neighborhood Dogs. And It Was Good. Go Ahead And Laugh. I Think The Most Important Thing I Learned Was: Never Let Go Of The Girl's Leg, No Matter How Hard She Tries To Shake You Off.

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.

I Believe Entertainment Can Aspire To Be Art, And Can Become Art, But If You Set Out To Make Art You're An Idiot.

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

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

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.

I Knew I Wanted To Be In Show Business So I Took The Path Of Least Resistance. I Loved Comedy. But You Never Know You Are Funny Until People Laugh. It's Just What I Was Interested In. I Could Make People Laugh, I Guess, But Doing It At School And Doing It Onstage Are Very Different Things.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

It's Not What You Know, It's What You Think You Know.

You Think You Know

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!

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.

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

Falling In Love

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

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.

It's Not The Size Of The Nose That Matters, It's What's Inside That Counts.

The Banjo Is Such A Happy Instrument--you Can't Play A Sad Song On The Banjo - It Always Comes Out So Cheerful.

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.

Introductions Are Hard To Come By When Your Natural State Is Shyness

I Was Very Interested In Vaudeville. It Was The Only Sort Of Discipline That Was A Five-minute Act On Stage, Which Is What I Really Enjoyed And Saw Myself Doing. And I Bought Books On It.

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.

Mirabelle Is Not Affected By A Man’s Failures To Approach Her, As Her Own Self-depreciating Attitude Never Allows The Idea That He Would In The First Place.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

As A Human Being On Earth, You Can't Imagine Friendship Not Being Important In Some Other Solar System Or Some Other Planet, Or Some Other Context Of Beings That Are Conscious. We Even See It In Animals. It Is Important For People On Earth To Reach Out Or Reach Into Someone.

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

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

Women Have Choices, And Men Have Responsibilities.

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

Writer's Block Is A Fancy Term Made Up By Whiners So They Can Have An Excuse To Drink Alcohol.

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 Many People Have Never Raised Their Hand Before?

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

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.'

I Choose A Project Based On Whether It Feels Worthwhile Working On When It Comes To Me. But Secondly I Choose It If It Sounds Like Fun. Projects Are Determined By Just How They Strike Me At The Moment, As They Have Done Throughout My Whole Life.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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."

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.

The Presence Of Excessive Wealth Puts An Unnatural Spin On The Appreciation Of Art.

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

As Much As I Remember, I Just Thought, I Want To Sing A Song That Starts Normal And Ends Crazy.

I Did A Lot Of Things When I First Started Out. In Order To Be In Show Business, I Juggled, I Did Magic Tricks, Cards Tricks And I Played The Banjo.

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 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.

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

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

I Never Had A Movie That I Wanted To Do Turned Down In My Whole Life. I Always Write The Script First So It Speaks For Itself.

The Greatest Thing You Can Do Is Surprise Yourself.

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

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 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's Horrible For Someone To Listen To Someone Learning Any Instrument - When I Was First Learning The Banjo, I Used To Have To Go Out And Sit In The Car, And Even In The Summertime I'd Have To Roll Up The Windows. Because You Just Couldn't Practice A Banjo Or A Fiddle With Other People Around. Unless They're Being Paid.

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

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?

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

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.

Only Then Does He Realize What He Has Done To Mirabelle, How Wanting A Square Inch Of Her And Not All Of Her Has Damaged Them Both, And How He Cannot Justify His Actions Except That, Well, It Was Life.

Acting Keeps Me Alert To People, And Life. I Don't Know, There's Something About Going To Work Early In The Morning, And Having To Stay Alert And Concentrated. Maybe That Keeps Your Mind Alive.

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

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.

Thankfully, Perseverance Is A Good Substitute For Talent.

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

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.

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.

The Lure In Art Collecting And Its Financial Rewards, Not Counting For A Moment Its Aesthetic, Cultural And Intellectual Rewards, Is Like The Trust In Paper Money: It Makes No Sense When You Really Think About It. New Artistic Images Are So Vulnerable To Opinion That It Wouldn't Take Much More Than A Whim For A Small Group Of Collectors To Decide That A Contemporary Artist Was Not So Wonderful Anymore, Was So Last Year.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I Always Felt The Audience Sorta Tolerated The Serious Musical Parts While I Was Doing My Comedy.

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

When Someone Less Capable Is Ahead Of Me, I Am Not Pleased. It Makes Me Insane.

Thankfully, Persistence Is A Great Substitute For Talent.

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.

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

I Didn't Come From A Wealthy Family. I Had No Money. Maybe It Goes Back To Naivete Which Is Your Greatest Asset When You're Young. If I Was Starting In Comedy Today And If It Didn't Work The First Time, I'd Probably Quit. But I Kept At It, Kept At It.

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.

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.

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

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.

What Is Comedy? Comedy Is The Art Of Making People Laugh Without Making Them Puke.

Love Is A Promise Delivered Already Broken.

I Believe The United States Should Allow All Foreigners In This Country, Provided They Can Speak Our Native Language... Apache.

Native Language

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

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.’

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 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.

I've Put An Umbrella In My Mouth And Opened It. I Sat In A Lemon-meringue Pie. I've Done Terrible Things To My Dog With A Fork.

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.

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

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 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.

So, I Can Hurt Now, Or Hurt Later.

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.

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

I Was Not Naturally Talented. I Didn't Sing, Dance Or Act, Though Working Around That Minor Detail Made Me Inventive.

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.

It's Pain That Changes Our Lives.

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

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

Bad Psychoanalysis Would Say I Enjoyed Pleasing People, Working Really Hard And Pleasing People, Which Is Probably Related To My Father In Some Way. But I Really Liked Working Hard. When I Worked At Disneyland, I'd Do 12 Hours Straight And Go Home Thrilled.

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

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

The Operation Was A Success, But I'm Afraid The Doctor Is Dead.

There Are Few Takers For The Quiet Heart.

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.

Trending Author

Daniel Berrigan

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Category