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

-Steve Martin

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You Can't Make Something

Steve Martin

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

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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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

So, I Can Hurt Now, Or Hurt Later.

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

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.

Thankfully, Perseverance Is A Good Substitute For Talent.

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.

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

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.

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 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...

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

Native Language

Nothing I Do Is Done By Popular Demand.

Women Have Choices, And Men Have Responsibilities.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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 Am A Wild And Crazy Guy!

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.

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

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

Falling In Love

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.

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.

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."

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

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

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

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.

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

Thankfully, Persistence Is A Great Substitute For Talent.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

You Think You Know

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.

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'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.

In A Strange Way, I Don't Have A Job, So I Have A Lot Of Time On My Hands. When I Do Work, It Might Be Very Concentrated, And It Might Be Months Where You're Not Really Doing Anything Except Maybe Playing The Banjo Or Writing Something. You Know, There's A Lot Of Time In The Day If You're Not Working 9 To 5.

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.

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.

No Art Comes From The Conscious Mind.

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.

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

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

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.

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

A Father Carries Pictures Where His Money Used To Be.

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.

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.

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

...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.

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

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.'

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 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.

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

I 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The Environment Changed With Martha Stewart And Enron.

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.

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

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

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

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.

A Joke That Works Is Complete Knowledge In A Nanosecond.

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.

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

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

All I've Ever Wanted Was An Honest Week's Pay For An Honest Day's Work.

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.

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

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

How Many People Have Never Raised Their Hand Before?

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.

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

Bad Relationship

Relationships Ending

Failed Relationship

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Being On Twitter Is Like Having A Fern.

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

The Greatest Thing You Can Do Is Surprise Yourself.

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

I Just Wanted To Be In Show Business. I Didn't Care If I Was Going To Be An Actor Or A Magician Or What. Comedy Was A Point Of The Least Resistance, Really. And On The Simplest Level, I Loved Comedy.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It's Pain That Changes Our Lives.

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

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

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.

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

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."

Love Is A Promise Delivered Already Broken.

I Think Communication Is So Firsbern.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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.

There Are Few Takers For The Quiet Heart.

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

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

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

Ah, Yes. I Remember My First Beer.

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

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

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

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?

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 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.

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.

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

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 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.

A Day Without Sunshine Is Like, You Know, Night.

His View Of The World Is One That Keeps His Blood Pressure Low, Sweeping The Cholesterol From His Relaxed, Freeway-sized Arteries. Everyone Knows He Is Going To Live Till Age Ninety, Although The Question That Goes Begging Is, “for What?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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John Bates Clark

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