Happy Birthday Jonathan Frakes!

I'm sort of in for a penny, in for a pound with Star Trek. It's my life at this point. To deny it would just be foolish.

I've always thought that we, as human beings, would be naive and arrogant to pretend that we're the only life form in the galaxy. 

I was told during the first season by the late, great Gene Rodenberry that he wanted Riker to have a Gary Cooper stance and presence and never to smile. It's very hard for me not to smile so I spent the first season being very rigid – and you can see it in the show – Riker's really stiff and rigid, trying desperately not to smile and finally I think Gene, and other people who leapt in, said maybe we should let a little more Frakes seep into Riker.

I always enjoyed going into the holodeck. 

I was a psych major until I saw how much fun the actors were having, and I decided I'd transfer over to the theater arts department.

I think that I've been pigeon-holed by virtue of the fact that I've spent so much time in front of a green screen. 

I think enjoying it helps. I don't think there's any reason to be an actor unless you feel deep in your soul that you have to be, because it's not a career that one can count on working in or making a living at.

If the prime directives were followed a little more accurately here on earth, I mean it sounds somewhat Pollyanna, but I think people would certainly get along better.

When I was younger I fancied the idea of being a jazz trombone player -- playing all those wonderful standards night after night -- and before that I wanted to be a psychiatrist. But now, I'd be happy to just have a bait shop.

I think, unfortunately or fortunately, the reality of Hollywood is that if your movie makes money, they'll make another one.

I'm very proud of having been a part of Star Trek, and it is what has allowed me to do what I'm doing now. It was 18 years of our lives and it has given all of us some wonderful things, not the least of which is our friendships.

I think Star Trek has been very double-edged for all of us - as actors, writers, directors.

Fact or fiction?

No, the type-casting didn't happen until after Star Trek. I don't think that you get typecast until you've been cast! 

My favorite actor of all time is Genie Francis.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

Well, there's much more time to do a weekly show, and much more coverage - as it turns out, it was all preparation for the stuff I'm doing now - but it was interesting to see how much time was spent on how little airtime, compared to knocking out a show a day on the soaps.

I don't think you ever leave Star Trek for good. 

One of my philosophies as a director is to listen to other people's great ideas because they'll help make you better.

I'm sort of in for a penny, in for a pound with Star Trek, It's my life at this point. To deny it would just be foolish.

I think I'm a better director than I ever was an actor. I'd love to go back to acting, but nobody seems to want me.

I like contemporary American literature and I like biographies and I like jazz and I like baseball and I like writers who write about the human condition and sci-fi is just something that I happened into.

Don't get me wrong-I'm very thankful for all the aliens I've met and loved.

Welcome aboard

Touching the Sun

So glad I witnessed this extraordinary moment 

Where am I now?

I know where I am ...

I loved the 70’s

An allusively fascinating sport.
Baseball meets Shuffleboard meets Chess on Teflon shoes

As the official spokesperson for the paranormal, I give you:

DATA is my favorite...

RED ALERT
SHIELDS UP

Happy Birthday Steve Martin!

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 was very interested in vaudeville. It was the only sort of discipline that was a five-minute act on stage, which is what I really enjoyed and saw myself doing. And I bought books on it.

Hosting the Oscars is much like making love to a woman. It's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.

Everything is fraught with danger. I love technology and I love science. It's just always all in the way you use it. So there's no - you can't really blame anything on the technology. It's just the way people use it, and it always has been.

I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that's in my head.

In my banjo show with the Steep Canyon Rangers, I do do comedy during that show. It'd be absurd just to stand there mute and play 25 banjo songs.

I don't think anyone is ever writing so that you can throw it away. You're always writing it to be something. Later, you decide whether it'll ever see the light of day. But at the moment of its writing, it's always meant to be something. So, to me, there's no practicing; there's only editing and publishing or not publishing.

I like all kinds of music. I listen to Abigail Washburn, the Punch Brothers, and Marc Johnson, the great clawhammer player. I also listen a lot to Sirius Radio, there's a lot of bluegrass there.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

I cringe at backstory. Because it never quite explains or gets into some psychological thing that is never quite right and never quite the truth and who knows why someone is some way.

I was raised with 'Laurel and Hardy' and 'I Love Lucy' and Jerry Lewis, and I just loved it. And I had a friend in high school and we would just laugh all day and put on skits. You know, it's the Andy Kaufman thing or the Marty Short thing where you're performing in your bedroom for yourself.

Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I'd do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.

Love is a promise delivered already broken.

What I mean is that none of my talents had a - what's that great word - rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer - there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I'm a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.

The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.

I thought 'Borat' was a breakthrough comedy, because it was really funny. It wasn't some studio-produced script with 14 writers.

I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I'm sure that's some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there's a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out.

I'm enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.

I was reading an article in the 'New York Times;' it talked about being in the zone, and being in the zone you're so focused that time ceases to exist. It's when you think, 'Oh, I've been doing this for five hours and didn't even know it.' It's the difference between hard work and going, '12 o'clock, not moving.'

Well, today the Grammys is much much better than the Oscars. I think the differences in the shows are that the Grammys are much wilder. The Oscars is much more people in the industry. And people dress wilder, I think, at the Grammys.

Don't have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.

'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' is a good one because it not only turned out, I think, to be a really funny movie but it was also a delight to shoot. We were in the South of France, working with Glenne Headly and Michael Caine and Frank Oz the director - who were just fun.

What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.

I think there are people out there writing original bluegrass songs, but it's hard to get them out on the air.

Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!

I like the idea that one thing leads to another. You can tweet something completely innocuous, and then find yourself going off on a tangent that's inspired by a response.

The thing about the banjo is, when you first hear it, it strikes many people as 'What's that?' There's something very compelling about it to certain people; that's the way I was; that's the way a lot of banjo players and people who love the banjo are.

I was always a huge fan of E. E. Cummings. He did a series of lectures at Harvard or Princeton, and they were recorded. And they were incredibly moving.

I loved doing 'Pennies from Heaven.' Because you have to understand that I'd been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and suddenly along came the opportunity to do this beautiful film. It was so emotional to me. I loved it. I don't think it was a good career move, but I have no regrets about doing it.

Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn't mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It's about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.

I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.

Most comedies are really hard to write, or to watch, because you kind of generally know what's coming.

No matter how many times people say it - 'Oh, I'm just writing this for myself' 'Oh, I'm just doing this for myself' - nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience. So whether I'm performing or writing a book or playing music, it's definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way, definitely.

I love technology, and I love science. It's just always all in the way you use it. So there's no - you can't really blame anything on the technology. It's just the way people use it, and it always has been.

Nothing I do is done by popular demand.

I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That's really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.

I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.

L.A. is only where you live, because otherwise it's just a sprawling mass of everything, and I think if you live in L.A., you get a little network of places you go, and people you see, and when you leave town, you do miss those places and your friends.

When I finally retire, I just want to go away so no one has to listen to me.

I never thought much about success early on. I only thought about being a comedian - or just being in show business, is really more accurate.

I actually credit Twitter with fine-tuning some joke-writing skills. I still feel like I'm working at it.

When I was in college, I really liked poetry. I don't read much anymore.

You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies.

A record isn't like a movie - you can get it together pretty fast.

I feel good about being able to take bluegrass on to television like 'Letterman' and 'The View,' and I've heard nice things about being able to do that. I really haven't felt any negativity toward me or my music.

I first thought maybe I'd do a banjo presentation record, where I'd play a couple of songs and get a bunch of other players to do the rest. Then I realized I had enough of my own songs to do an album of them.

Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.

Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.

I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.

I'm enamored with the art world.

What is a movie star? A movie star is many things. They can be tall, short, thin, or skinny. They can be Democrats... or skinny.

I love comedy. That's what got me into the arts. I don't even know how to categorize myself anymore.

I've run into people in my life who were so dramatic; people who are so extreme and so frustrating to be around that you end up thinking about them and talking about them for literally years after your experience with them is over. I've had that happen to me, and I've seen it happen to other people. I find it fascinating.

The greatest thing you can do is surprise yourself.

View the list I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.

I wrote a novel this year called "Shop Girl", and several producers came to me and wanted to turn it into a movie. And I said, "If you think you're going to take this book and change it around, and Hollywoodize it and change the ending . . . that's going to cost you."

I wish I could do a lot of things different. I'm not going to tell you what they are, but if I had a list of all my films right now, I'd go, 'Okay, I'll cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out.' Really. But I've made over 40 films. How can I not have some losers in there?

Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.

Tweeting is really only good for one thing - it's just good for tweeting... It is rewarding, because it's just its own reward. It's sort of like heaven.

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it's easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin' man and the loner.

I'm for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?

I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.

I got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly.

The real joy is in constructing a sentence. But I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready.

When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well.

I would get records by Earl Scruggs... I would tune my banjo down and I'd pick out the songs note by note. Learned how to play that way. I persevered. There was a book written by Pete Seeger, who showed you some basic strumming and some basic picking... And I kind of worked out my own style of playing.

An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.

The bluegrass community... can be very strict. I didn't know if I'd be welcomed into the bluegrass community or not, but I think they judge you very fairly... I felt really welcome.

I don't like to look back, and I'm always worried about the next thing rather than resting on the laurels or the degradations of the last thing.

I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.

You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do. You want to be focused on it.

I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness.

I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.

I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.

I was not naturally talented. I didn't sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.

Well, excuuuuuse me!

There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she caught me with another woman. I won't stand for that.

Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.

I never thought about success. I always thought about doing the job at hand. My goal was getting through the show that night.

I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.

When I was in college, I was debating to try my hand at show business, or to become a professor. I just thought of the risk of not going into show business and always wondering if I would've had a chance. Because that's where my real heart was.

I thought if I had a Twitter feed and say I had a following of a 100,000, that means 100,000 of them would be interested in my book. It was logical, but it didn't turn out to be true. It turned out if I had a Twitter feed of a 100,000, four of them were interested in my book.

Movies always are open to being remade because times change so much, and the tempo of movies changes. I think of it like a James Bond. They can have different actors play the same role... I've had people come up to me and say, 'We want to remake 'The Jerk' with so and so.' And I say, 'Fine.' It just doesn't bother me. It's an honor actually.

I've always believed that there are funny people everywhere, but they're just not comedians. In fact, some of my best comedic inspirations were not professional entertainers.

I really enjoy finding the right word, creating a good, flowing sentence. I enjoy the rhythm of the words.

Throughout my whole life, as a performer, I've never played with a band. I've always played alone, so I was never required to stay in rhythm or anything. So it was a real different experience for me to start playing with a band. There were so many basic things for me to learn.

It's a mystery to me the way that contemporary art galleries function.

There's a lot of thought in art. People get to talk about important things. There's a lot of sex, you know, in art. There's a lot of naked women and men, and there's intrigue, there's fakery. It's a real microcosm of the larger world.

With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you're never off the hook.

I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.

A Cleopatra of Pythons? Wait, that’s not quite right.

Here’s what I would do. Watch the special on Netflix, then have some upheaval in your life like a broken romance. Then see it live and think, “this reminds me of long ago.”

And I love that you made no negative comments. It’s enough that we just hang ourselves!

Ham and ham?

If you like big announcements - and I think you do - hang in there for a few minutes while I dress.

Best photo ever of me.  Finally, my hair looks great.

I think you’re underestimating its bigness.

Backwards “R” finally brings down Toy R Us.” They tried to appeal to kids.

So moving to see my friend and hair-dresser on many films, Toni-Ann Walker, honored on the Oscars’ In Memoriam section tonight.

Okey dokey. Here’s a video with Marty and me talking about our new Netflix special coming this summer! Now we’re like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle except for the pay!

Big slowdown in the big announcement, but shortly. Linking to a video and I’m not as smart as I thought.

Opps, post went haywire. Now the excitement builds.

I have a good gift, just don't know whom to give it to: "2 Tins of .35 oz Holey Butt'r Vegan Ear Gauge Stretching Lobe Cream."

Our greatest thanks to the Portland Fire Department, the Montecito Fire Department, and all the fire departments making a stand and defending our street and our neighbors’ streets from the Thomas Fire.

Sometimes a headline is just too much to bear: “Ancient Penguins Were Giant Waddling Predators.”

Could it be called, “Steve Martin has a new album out?”

Thanks to Drama League and an outstanding cast for a joyful celebration last night. Kermit was fun to get to know.

Citi Biking down to Broadway to see my play Meteor Shower starring 4 great comic actors.

Just bought a dozen pair of women’s slippers. Advertising works!

I am a huge fan of Irish step dancing, and borrowed its techniques for a movie I did Leap of Faith. Bravo.

I am now accepting compliments on my new hat.

Happy Birthday Alfred Hitchcock!

In North By Northwest during the scene on Mount Rushmore, I wanted Cary Grant to hide in Lincoln's nostril and then have a fit of sneezing. The Parks Commission...was rather upset at this thought. I argued until one of their number asked me how I would like it if they had Lincoln play the scene in Cary Grant's nose.
I saw their point at once.

There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever. 

I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. Why, if that happened, we wouldn't stand a chance! How could we possibly hope to fight them?

Give them pleasure - the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.

Twenty to life, she got, with time off for good behavior. You come around next spring. I'll introduce you.

This award is meaningful because it comes from my fellow dealers in celluloid.

Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake.

The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.

Love those wrongdoers, they need it more than you.

I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.

I am scared easily, here is a list of my adrenaline - production: 1: small children, 2: policemen, 3: high places, 4: that my next movie will not be as good as the last one.

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

Seeing a murder on television can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some. 

I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it. 

Television has brought back murder into the home - where it belongs.

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

Disney has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor he just tears him up.

I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach. 

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it. 

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

I am to provide the public with beneficial shocks. 

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like.

I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them. 

Television is like the American toaster, you push the button and the same thing pops up everytime.

These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.

Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual.

Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.

Ideas come from everything.

Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like the kitchen table.

If I won't be myself, who will?

View the list Revenge is sweet and not fattening. 

I’ve never been very keen on women who hang their sex round their neck like baubles. I think it should be discovered. It’s more interesting to discover the sex in a woman than it is to have it thrown at you, like a Marilyn Monroe or those types. To me they are rather vulgar and obvious.

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop.

There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

I'm a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.

Someone once told me that every minute a murder occurs, so I don't want to waste your time, I know you want to go back to work.

I can't read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. 

A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.

For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.

I have a feeling that inside you somewhere,there's somebody nobody knows about.

There is nothing quite so good as burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.

T.V. has brought murder back into the home where it belongs.

I'm full of fears and I do my best to avoid difficulties and any kind of complications. I like everything around me to be clear as crystal and completely calm.

Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect ‘woman of mystery’ is one who is blonde, subtle and Nordic. ... Although I do not profess to be an authority on women, I fear that the perfect title [for a movie], like the perfect woman is difficult to find.

Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn't change people's habits. It just kept them inside the house.

I'm sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.

If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.

It seems to me that television is exactly like a gun. Your enjoyment of it is determined by which end of it you're on.

In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.

The picture's over. Now I have to go and put it on film.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

I understand that the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, astatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equaled the purity of sound achieved by the pig.

A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it. 

Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest.

Self-plagiarism is style.

I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes … have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I’ve never tasted it.

When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.' 

If you can't do it naturally, then fake it.

What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.

A clear horizon — nothing to worry about on your plate, only things that are creative and not destructive… I can’t bear quarreling, I can’t bear feelings between people — I think hatred is wasted energy, and it’s all non-productive. I’m very sensitive — a sharp word, said by a person, say, who has a temper, if they’re close to me, hurts me for days. I know we’re only human, we do go in for these various emotions, call them negative emotions, but when all these are removed and you can look forward and the road is clear ahead, and now you’re going to create something — I think that’s as happy as I’ll ever want to be.

The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them. 

In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema: they are mostly what I call 'photographs of people talking.' When we tell a story in cinema we should resort to dialogue only when it's impossible to do otherwise. I always try to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between.

In films murders are always very clean. I show how difficult it is and what a messy thing it is to kill a man.

You think she's pretty, you ought to see my slingshot!