Humor & Life Quote by Steve Martin

Refusing to apologize is one of those ugly impulses society keeps trying to dress up as principle, and Steve Martin skewers it by letting the impulse talk in its own voice. The line is basically a tantrum in a tuxedo: “Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly!” reads like someone auditioning for moral authority while dodging moral responsibility. Martin’s genius here is that he doesn’t argue against the stance; he just turns up the volume on its theatricality until it becomes self-incriminating.

The key phrase is “beneath the dignity of any gentleman.” That’s not ethics, it’s branding. The speaker isn’t asking, Was I wrong? He’s asking, What would it do to my image if I admitted it? By tacking on “however wrong he might be,” Martin lands the knife: even total culpability becomes irrelevant once pride is framed as “dignity.” It’s a parody of the old code where masculinity is measured by stubbornness, not integrity, and where “gentleman” functions as a get-out-of-accountability card.

As a comedian, Martin is also winking at how easily we confuse contrition with weakness. The overstuffed exclamations mimic blustery honor culture, the kind that prefers a clean narrative of superiority to the messy work of repair. The subtext is contemporary, too: public life rewards the non-apology (“I’m sorry you were offended”) and punishes the real one. Martin’s line makes that posture look exactly like what it is: fear, pretending to be class.