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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.

-Steve Martin

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I Used To Think

Steve Martin

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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.

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Falling In Love

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

Thankfully, Perseverance Is A Good Substitute For Talent.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Love Is A Promise Delivered Already Broken.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Movies Always Are Open To Being Remade Because Times Change So Much, And The Tempo Of Movies Changes. I Think Of It Like A James Bond. They Can Have Different Actors Play The Same Role... I've Had People Come Up To Me And Say, 'we Want To Remake 'the Jerk' With So And So.' And I Say, 'fine.' It Just Doesn't Bother Me. It's An Honor Actually.

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

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.

...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 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.

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

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.

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.

I Am A Wild And Crazy Guy!

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

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

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.

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

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

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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!

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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.

I Like What A Third Man Brings. A Kind Of Oblique Vision, Seeing Something In The Material That You Didn't Know Was There. As A Comedian, I'm Always Listening To The Audience. And In Movies, Sometimes The Only Audience You Have Is The Producer And The Director. I Like Having Someone Else's Opinion, Especially If You're On The Same Wavelength.

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.

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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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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...

Being On Twitter Is Like Having A Fern.

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

I Would Like A Wine. The Purpose Of The Wine Is To Get Me Drunk. A Bad Wine Will Get Me As Drunk As A Good Wine. I Would Like The Good Wine. And Since The Result Is The Same No Matter Which Wine I Drink, I'd Like To Pay The Bad Wine Price.

I Think I Meant That, Given The Circumstances Of My Childhood, I Had The Illusion That It's Easier To Be Alone. To Have Your Relationships Be Casual And Also To Pose As A Solitary Person, Because It Was More Romantic. You Know, I Was Raised On The Idea Of The Ramblin' Man And The Loner.

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.’

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.

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

Knowledge Of Means Without Knowledge Of Ends Is Animal Training.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Knew I Could Only Play Cyrano If He Were Americanized. I Had No Intention Of Writing The Script Myself. I Was Afraid Of It. You're Playing With Fire When You Tamper With A Classic. So I Went Looking For A Writer. But It Was Such A Personal Idea, And Anyone I Would Give It To Would Make It His Own. It's Hard To Ask Neil Simon To Write Your Idea.

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

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

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

Women Have Choices, And Men Have Responsibilities.

Ah, Yes. I Remember My First Beer.

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

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

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.

She Was Feeling Her Bohemian Oats.

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.

No Art Comes From The Conscious Mind.

There Are Few Takers For The Quiet Heart.

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.

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

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

Relationships End, But They Don't End Your Life. But People Do Often Spending More Time Finding Out About Failed Relationships Than Finding Successful Ones.

Bad Relationship

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 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'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.

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

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

Rebelliousness Really Is The Province Of Young People-that Kind Of Iconoclasm.

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.

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!

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.

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

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 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'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.

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.

Be So Good They Can't Ignore You.

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

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

There's No Better Way To Learn Something Than To Learn It In Front Of An Audience. Your Terror Drives You.

Mirabelle Is Attractive; It's Just That She Is Never The First Or Second Girl Chosen.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Some Nights, Alone, He Thinks Of Her, And Some Nights, Alone, She Thinks Of Him. Some Night These Thoughts, Separated By Miles And Time Zones, Occur At The Same Objective Moment, And Ray And Mirabelle Are Connected Without Ever Knowing It.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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."

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

Always...no Wait...never.

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!

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

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.

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

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

Thankfully, Persistence Is A Great Substitute For Talent.

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.

In Talking To Girls I Could Never Remember The Right Sequence Of Things To Say. I'd Meet A Girl And Say, Hi, Was It Good For You Too? If A Girl Spent The Night, I'd Wake Up In The Morning And Then Try To Get Her Drunk.

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.

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

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

She Is Nearing Forty And Not So Easily Forgiven As When Her Skin Bloomed Like Roses.

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.

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.

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.

I'm A Bitter, Sad, Sour Young Man Who Makes A Career Out Of Hastling People With Real Careers.

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?

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 [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.

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

A Joke That Works Is Complete Knowledge In A Nanosecond.

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

I Think Communication Is So Firsbern.

[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?

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

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?

It's Funny That Some Ideas Start With A Little "what If?" And Then Suddenly You're Spending A Million Dollars To Shoot The Scene And Hoping That It Works.

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.

There Is Something Going On Now In Mexico That I Happen To Think Is Cruelty To Animals. What I'm Talking About, Of Course, Is Cat Juggling.

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

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

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.

You Know, A Lot Of People Come To Me And They Say, "steve, How Can You Be So Fucking Funny?" There's A Secret To It, It's No Big Deal. Before I Go Out, I Put A Slice Of Bologna In Each Of My Shoes. So When I'm On Stage, I Feel Funny.

I'm Not Trying To Be A Big Shot Or Anything Like That, But I Get My Drinks Half Price.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Native Language

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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Melissa De La Cruz

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