Alan > Alan's Quotes

“With a cheery delicacy she divided my obsessions into three categories: acceptable, unacceptable, and hilarious.”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“At least Clarissa knows I'm benign. But that is not an adjective one wants to throw around about one's spouse: "This is my husband. He's benign.”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“In the deeper hours of the night I began to look at myself, to consider myself and my condition, to measure the life I'd led so far. I did not know what made me this way. I did not know of any other way I could be. I did not know what was inside me or how I could redeem what was hidden there. There must be a key or person or thing, or song or poem or belief, or old saw that could access it, but they all seemed so far away, and after I drifted further and further into self-absorption, I closed the evening with this desolate thought: there are few takers for the quiet heart.”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“I guessed that one day the restrictions I imposed on myself would end. But first, it seemed that my range of possible activities would have to iris down to zero before I could turn myself around. Then, when I was static and immobile, I could weigh and measure every exterior force and, slowly and incrementally, once again allow the outside in. And that would be my life.”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“My plan was to walk by on my side of the street and not look over her way. This, I felt, was a very clever masculine move: to meet and ultimately seduce through no contact at all. She would be made aware of me as a mysterious figure, someone with no need of her whatsoever. This is compelling to a woman.”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“Thinking too much also creates the illusion of causal connections between unrelated events.”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“They told me to just "act like myself." When I said, "How do I do that?" they said to just have fun with it, but I'm not sure what they meant.”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“I see other people crossing the street at the curb and I don't know how they can do it.”
― Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

“When you work in the glove department at Neiman's, you are selling things that nobody buys anymore.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“She has simply never quite learned to walk or hold herself comfortably, which makes her come off as an attractive wallflower.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle, who never takes credit for her attractiveness, believes it is not she he is responding to, but rather something independent of her.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“She knows that she needs new friends but introductions are hard to come by when your natural state is shyness.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“If there were a silent observer, Mirabelle would be seen as a carefree, happy girl who is preparing for a night on the town. But in reality, these activities are the physical manifestations of her stillness.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“The Serzone is a gift from God that frees her from the immobilising depression that would otherwise surround her and seep into her body like a poisonous fog. The drug distances the depression from her, although it is never out of sight. ... The depression she battles is not the newly acquired symptom of a young woman now living in Los Angeles on her own. It was first set in the bow in Vermont, where she grew up, and fired as a companion arrow that has travelled with her ever since.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“In spite of her depression, Mirabelle likes to think of herself as humourous. She can, when the occasion calls, become a wisecracker and buoyant party girl. This mood, Mirabelle thinks, sometimes makes her the centre of attention at parties and gatherings. The truth is that these episodes of gaiety merely raise her to normal, but for Mirabelle the feeling is so exceptional that she believes herself to be standing out.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle attracts men of a different kind. They are shyer and more reticent. They look at her a long time before approaching, and when they do find something about her that they want, it is something simple within her.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“He had no college dreams and hence no proximity to the challenge of new faces and ideas.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“The conversation at dinner hadn't been successful either; it bore the marks of an old married couple who had very little left to say to each other.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle knows, and she lets this be unspoken, that all free things require conversation. Sitting in a darkened movie theatre requires absolutely no conversation at all, whereas a free date, like a walk down Hollywood Boulevard in the busy evening, requires comments, chatter, observations, and with luck, wit. She worries that since they have only exchanged perhaps two dozen words between them, these free dates will be horrible.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“All this in no way discounts her attractiveness. Mirabelle is attractive; it's just that she is never the first or second girl chosen.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“He never complicates a desire by overthinking it, unlike Mirabelle, who spins a cocoon around an idea until it is immobile.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“As she sits in a booth, it never occurs to her to observe herself, and thus she is spared the image of a girl sitting alone in a bar on Saturday night. A girl who is willing to give every ounce of herself to someone, who could never betray her lover, who never suspects maliciousness of anyone, and whose sexuality sleeps within her, waiting to be stirred. .... She keeps working to make connections, but the pile of near misses is starting to overwhelm her. What Mirabelle needs is some omniscient voice to illuminate and spotlight her, and to inform everyone that this one has value, this one over here, the one sitting in the bar by herself, and then to find her counterpart and bring him to her.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“She appears sunny, a quality that Mirabelle can call upon only for special occasions.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“To Mirabelle, the idea of being an object of obsession is alluring and represents a powerful love. She fails to understand, however, that men become obsessive over beautiful women because they want no one else to have them, but they fall in love with women like Mirabelle because they want a certain, specific part of them.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle is not affected by a man's failure to approach her, as her own self-deprecating attitude never allows the idea that he would in the first place.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle's ambition is about one-tenth of 1 percent of what would be called normal. ... She is not aware that some people fight like alley cats for desirable situations. She presents a résumé, fills out an application, waits, and finally makes a call to see if she got the job. Usually, a confused secretary will answer and say that the position had been filled weeks ago. This aimlessness in presenting herself contributes to her feeling of being adrift.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“There is nothing too mysterious about Ray Porter, at least not in the usual sense of the word. He is single, he is kind, he tries to do the right thing, and he does not understand himself, or women, or his relationships with women.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“These experiences have caused him to think very hard about what he is doing and where he is going. And the result of all this thinking is that he now understands that he doesn't know what he is doing or where he is going.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“The woman speaks, stops, then after what must have been a long speech by the person on the other end of the line, says, "... just remember, darling, it is pain that changes our lives." Mirabelle cannot fathom the meaning of this sentence, as she has been in pain her whole life, and yet it remains unchanged.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“What would any man do with a soggy girl who can't assert herself, who has a weak voice, and whose main personality component is helplessness?”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl