Steve Martin Quotes

There's no hope of me becoming completely relaxed on stage. If I did, I'd sit down and doze off.

When I do stand-up, I'm basically doing a one-man show.

The whole thing with playing on a stage with mics and all that has always been kind of uncomfortable to me.

Performing comedy, you develop a rhythm of ideas and laughs. I live for it.

If you're doing stand-up, there is no fourth wall; you're engaging an audience.

Stand-up in general is the most raw form of entertainment. There is no pyrotechnics or back-up dancers, it's just live and die by your jokes, that's it.

I remember doing a lot of comedy. I always loved that feeling when you do something on stage and you can feel the vibe of the audience turn, and they start laughing. It's how you know something's not right, and how to fix it, or how to make the moment stronger or funnier.

I'm very much a stand-up comedian in my heart. That's really what I do. Now I'm trying to incorporate all of the different elements of my work as a performer, and use it as a stand-up comedian.

I like doing live things and plays. You can perfect the laugh or extend the laugh, you can get them on a roll. Versus improv, which I hate. Put it all together. They're more vignettes. Improv makes me slightly anxious because I feel for them.

I think that, for me, my favorite thing to do is perform standup onstage. Everything else I do is for the exposure to do more stand-up onstage, and for the money, and for the health insurance.

'Where's Bill going?' He's going to comedy death. Boom! He pops out of it with another joke. It's my particular style.

My first open mic, I drank a full pitcher of beer by myself. I wasn't afraid of being in front of people as much as, Is this funny?

The old cliché in theater is, if you’re nervous, pick up a prop, which will immediately take you outside of your mind.

I had always been heavily influenced by stand-up.

One of the reasons I still do stand-up is because it was so hard in the beginning that I feel like it would be such a shame not to redeem it that it's all fun.

Another cause of confusion, and the resulting feelings of nervousness, hurry, and anxiety, is the absurd habit of trying to do many things at one time.

Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public.

I’ll always be doing stand-up as long as people are still interested in seeing me.

I'm very lucky in that I've gotten to do a lot of things. But if you ever put a gun to my head and said, "You can only do one," I'd think it would be stand-up. I think it's the coolest job in the world.

You would never do stand-up without an audience. I mean, no one would even consider it. It's like they're the instrument you're playing.

The whole idea of comedy, there is nothing normal about going up on stage to make strangers laugh. But I'm also not an exhibitionist like other comics. I'm not up there talking about masturbating.

I get to do stand-up every single day. I love that live energy exchange between the audience and myself, and to get to say the things I want to say and comment on.

I wanted to be like an actor or a comedian for a little while, because I was always wanting to make people laugh, and being stupid, so I never thought I'd be doing a job where you always have to look nice, and polished and sophisticated.

When you're doing comedy on stage, it's great because you have the audience there and they're like another actor in the scene. You feed off of them, laugh. But in film when everyone's quiet, it's all about timing. But the key to that is to be authentic. Be in the moment, and if you play the moment truthfully, the humor will be there.

What's great about stand-up unlike athletes and other things when you get old you get old and rusty.