Steve Martin Quotes About Comedy
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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.
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I thought 'Borat' was a breakthrough comedy, because it was really funny. It wasn't some studio-produced script with 14 writers.
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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.
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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.
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Working at the magic shop really gave me a sense of comedy because it was all jokes.
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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.
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Deeply funny musings and adventures elevate Paul Rudnick to the highest level of American comedy writing.
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Comedy makes you humble. Because there are so many opportunities to miss, and strike out.
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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.
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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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With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you're never off the hook.
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Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.
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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.
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I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.
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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.
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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.
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Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.
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Comedy is not pretty.
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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.
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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.
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Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.
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Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
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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.
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I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines.
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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.
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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.
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