Steve > Steve's Quotes

“If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on.”
― Terence McKenna

“I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.”
― Annie Dillard

“As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities.”
― Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments

“Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you'll be a mile away and have his shoes.”
― Steve Martin

“How is it possible to miss a woman whom you kept at a distance, so that when she was gone you would not miss her?”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them.”
― Steve Martin

“...it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“If you've got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've got 71 cents left; But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand. There's a math lesson for you.”
― Steve Martin

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”
― Steve Martin

“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.”
― Steve Martin

“Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“Yeah, well, we're all writers, aren't we? He's a writer that hasn't been published, and I'm a writer who hasn't written anything.”
― Steve Martin, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays

“Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naïveté, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is.”
― Steve Martin

“How many people have never raised their hand before?”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“I opened the show with this line: "I have decided to give the greatest performance of my life! Oh, wait, sorry, that's tomorrow night.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“Being on Twitter is like having a fern.”
― Steve Martin

“Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison.
It is the dose that makes the poison”
― Paracelsus