Steve Martin and the Most Beautiful Words in the English Language

August 16, 2017

Interviewer: “Many people think comedy needs to have a victim. But in your stage act, the only victim was you.”

Steve Martin: “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. He does this long anecdote, and then he says, ‘To me, these are the most beautiful words ever written in the English language.’ Suddenly you’re really listening. ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ I thought about that a lot. It’s like when you listen to a comedian, you think, ‘Well, what is your life?'”