Steve Martin Comedy Quotations

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

Comedy is not pretty.

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

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

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

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.

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