The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.
— Steve Martin
You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do.
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.
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'm for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?
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.
What is a movie star? A movie star is many things. They can be tall, short, thin, or skinny. They can be Democrats... or skinny.
A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.
I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.
Well, excuuuuuse me!
I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.
Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.
I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.
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 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.
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 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.
Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.
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.
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.
Love is a promise delivered already broken.
I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.
I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.
I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness.
Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.
I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.
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.
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'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.
The bluegrass community... can be very strict. I didn't know if I'd be welcomed into the bluegrass community or not, but I think they judge you very fairly... I felt really welcome.
I 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?
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.
Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!
Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.
What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
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.
Don't have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.
When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well.
