Comedy Quotes by Steve Martin

Comedy is not pretty.

— Steve Martin

What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.

— Steve Martin

Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.

— Steve Martin

With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you're never off the hook.

— Steve Martin

A joke that works is complete knowledge in a nanosecond…

— Steve Martin

Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke

— Steve Martin

Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.

— Steve Martin

Teaching is, after all, a form of show business.

— Steve Martin

Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.

— Steve Martin

It [live performance] is just very difficult. Doing an hour, hour and a half of live standup is an endurance test. You…

— Steve Martin

Comedy makes you humble. Because there are so many opportunities to miss, and strike out.

— Steve Martin

I thought 'Borat' was a breakthrough comedy, because it was really funny. It wasn't some studio-produced script with 14 writers.

— Steve Martin

I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little…

— Steve Martin

Working at the magic shop really gave me a sense of comedy because it was all jokes.

— Steve Martin

In my banjo show with the Steep Canyon Rangers, I do do comedy during that show. It'd be absurd just to stand…

— Steve Martin

I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.

— Steve Martin

When I first started doing my stand-up act, I played the banjo, did comedy, magic tricks, juggled, read poetry. I stuck it…

— Steve Martin

At first I had no skills in writing comedy. I didn't know what a joke was, but, as someone once told me,…

— Steve Martin

Any type of humor can be transferred to the screen, as long as there's clarity. The audience wants to know just what…

— Steve Martin

I can juggle. I started juggling as a kid. And when I worked at Disneyland, I knew a juggler there named Christopher…

— Steve Martin

Performing music is a way to do comedy, but without the obligation to do a solid hour, hour and half of a…

— Steve Martin

When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to…

— Steve Martin

I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved…

— Steve Martin

With comedy, you never know until you put it in front of an audience. You shoot it and a year later you…

— Steve Martin

My most persistent memory of stand - up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the…

— Steve Martin

I knew I wanted to be in comedy but the path of least resistance was doing stand-up in folk music clubs where…

— Steve Martin

“What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it?…

— Steve Martin

I've been writing for a long time, since the late '60s. But it hasn't been in the same form. I used to…

— Steve Martin

Stand-up life is really hard. At one point, I got so paralyzed I could write five screenplays before I could write three…

— Steve Martin

I like what a third man brings. A kind of oblique vision, seeing something in the material that you didn't know was…

— Steve Martin

“Now that I had assigned myself an act without jokes, I gave myself a rule. Never let them know I was bombing”

— Steve Martin

Most comedies are really hard to write, or to watch, because you kind of generally know what's coming.

— Steve Martin

Deeply funny musings and adventures elevate Paul Rudnick to the highest level of American comedy writing.

— Steve Martin

I love comedy. That's what got me into the arts. I don't even know how to categorize myself anymore.

— Steve Martin

I think probably the most difficult challenge was just the climb and rise in show business because I went through my entire…

— Steve Martin

I loved doing 'Pennies from Heaven.' Because you have to understand that I'd been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and…

— Steve Martin

I knew I wanted to be in show business so I took the path of least resistance. I loved comedy. But you…

— Steve Martin

I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One…

— Steve Martin

I didn't come from a wealthy family. I had no money. Maybe it goes back to naivete which is your greatest asset…

— Steve Martin

I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the…

— Steve Martin