Steve Martin

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• The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need. My name in print. That really makes somebody. Things are going to start happening to me now!
  • As "Navin R. Johnson" in The Jerk (1979)

• All of a sudden I had to remember some words that Marlowe had told me over fifteen years ago: 'Dead men don't wear plaid.' Hmm... Dead men don't wear plaid. I still don't know what it means.
  • As "Rigby Reardon" in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

• You kill me and I'll see that you never work in this town again.
  • As "Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr" in The Man with Two Brains (1983)

• A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
  • As Harris K. Telemacher in "L.A. Story" (1991)

• Why is it we don't always recognize the moment when love begins, but we always know when it ends?
  • As Harris K. Telemacher in "L.A. Story" (1991)

• Hosting the Oscars is like making love to a beautiful woman — it's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal's out of town.
  • Hosting the 2001 Academy Awards

• 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.
  • Introducing the best adapted screenplay at the 2003 Academy Awards

• It was so sweet backstage, you should have seen it — The Teamsters were helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo.
  • After Moore's speech at the 75th Academy Awards, in 2003.

• I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.
  • Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy
• Now let's repeat the non-conformists' oath: I promise to be different! (audience repeats) I promise to be unique! (audience repeats) I promise not to repeat things other people say! (audience laughs, repeats) Good!
  • Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy
• It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary...but, 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 any more if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.
  • Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy
• I used to smoke marijuana. But I'll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening - or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early mid-afternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . But never at dusk! Never at dusk, I would never do that.
  • Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

• You know, a lot of people come to me and they say, "Steve, how can you be so fucking funny?" There's a secret to it, it's no big deal. Before I go out, I put a slice of bologna in each of my shoes. So when I'm on stage, I feel funny.
  • Comedy album Let's Get Small

• (Audience member): What's your mood watch say?
• (Martin): Yeah, I remember when I had my first beer.
  • Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

• People come up to me and say "Steve, what is film editing?" And I say "How should I know? You're the director."
  • Introducing the film editing award at the Oscars.

• Comedy is not pretty.
  • Comedy album "Comedy is Not Pretty"