Steve Martin

I love Steve Martin as a serious actor (Roxanne), as a funny man (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), as a lover (Shopgirl), as a father (Father of the Bride), as a dentist (Little Shop of Horrors), but most of all--as a writer.

No one, and I mean no one--not Virginia Woolf, not Anais Nin, not James Joyce himself--can write as pretty a book as Steve Martin can. Just one paragraph of any of his three novels takes my breath away.

He is a delicate writer, the polar opposite of other noted male authors like Hemingway or Steinbeck, who thrash about with no use for aesthetics. He is the cure for the cleansed, circumcised story.

 He's also fantastically clever. These are three of my favorite things he's said.

"The greatest thing you can do is surprise yourself."
"Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke."
"I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art, you are an idiot."

Love him. Love his books. He makes me want to actually quit writing, because nothing I produce will ever be as beautiful as what he's already made.