Steve Martin Movie Quotes

Steve Martin got his start as a writer for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour”, then went into comedy, then went into acting. “Comedians don’t get Oscars, so I gave up on that a long time ago. And I can’t really speak about the Oscar-worthiness of my own performance,” he once said. At the age of 68, the multi-talented jack of all trades was awarded an honorary Oscar at the Academy’s Fifth annual Governors Awards in November 2013.

Here are quotes from some of his memorable movie roles:

As Navin R. Johnson in The Jerk (1981)
“For one dollar, I’ll guess your weight, your height, or your sex.”
“Wait a minute, what’s happening to my special purpose?”
“I didn’t want to get spit on me.”

As Rigby Reardon in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)
“Sorry, but my price for leaving stinking towns is $11,500 and a kiss on the lips from Carmen Miranda. Pass it on to them.”
“What’s he paying you boys? I’ll double it AND we’ll beat the shit out of him.”
“That’s one thing I’ve learned about clients. Dead ones don’t pay their bills.”

As Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. in Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
“Stupid woman! Christ, what a freakin’ scatterbrain!”
“Get the Vitalis! Quick, the Vitalis!”
“Let me ask you something! Does this scare you? Would you like if I took this and headed right for your damn incisors?”
“Oh, the gas isn’t for you Seymour, it’s for me. You see, I wanna really enjoy this.”
“Kid’s got a goddamn revolver Oh, Jesus! I’m in trouble now, huh?”
(singing) “I thrill when I drill a bicuspid / It’s swell though they tell me I’m mal-ad-just-ed.”

As Lucky Day in ¡Three Amigos! (1986)
“In a way, all of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be the actual El Guapo!”

As Freddy Benson in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
“I’ve got culture coming out of my ass.”
“I didn’t steal any money! She just saw me with another woman! You’re French, you understand that!”

As Jonas Nightengale in Leap of Faith (1992)
“Look, I run a show here. It’s a lot of smoke and noise and it’s strictly for the suckers. I’ve been pulling one kind of scam or another since I was your age, and if there’s one thing I know it’s how to spot the genuine article because that’s what you’ve got to watch out for. Not the cops, you can always get around the cops. But the one thing you can never, ever get around is the genuine article, and you, kid, are the genuine article.”