I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.
Interpretation
This quote humorously expresses frustration with excessive wordiness in communication.
Steve Martin's quote highlights the importance of brevity in communication, suggesting that sometimes, simplicity and efficiency are more effective than using many words to convey a message. By emphasizing the use of proper punctuation over unnecessary letters, it reflects a playful disdain for verbosity and encourages clear expression.
In practice
This quote could be used in a writing workshop to encourage participants to focus on concise expression.
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do.
I have heard it said that a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts. I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know I am qualified to be a comedian.
...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.
Reviews for someone like me come in three packages. One is justifiable praise, the second is justifiable criticism, and the third is, "This is only published because he's a celebrity."
If he thinks he would harm Mirabelle, he would back away. But he does not yet understand when and how people are hurt. He doesn't understand the subtleties of slights and pains, that 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.
Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough.
It seems to me that very sad things always contain an element of the comical
It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.
Vincent Gallo has put a curse on my colon and a hex on my prostate. He called me a 'fat pig' in the New York Post and told the New York Observer I have 'the physique of a slave-trader.' He is angry at me because I said his 'The Brown Bunny' was the worst movie in the history of the Cannes Film Festival... _x000D_ it is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'
When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?
The humor is that finally when you have the power to move the mountain, you are the person who placed it there-so there the mountain stays.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.