Quotes by Shelley Berman

“If youve never met a student from the University of Chicago, Ill describe him to you. If you give him a glass of water, he says, This is a glass of water. But is it a glass of water? And if it is a glass of water, why is it a glass of water? And eventually he dies of thirst.”

“Few, very few, will ever be able to craft a joke as beautifully as Pat. He was able to just make it all happen. I dont think he was great at telling them, but he was sure great at putting them down.”

“suddenly, we were moving.”

“We were sitting watching television, had finished a nice dinner, everything was fine. Other people were in serious trouble. Then suddenly, we were moving,”

“Its great conversation. In the industry, its great talk,”

“one of the greatest humorists of the last half-century.”

“I was concerned about `who am I? to the audience. So when they (the filmmakers) said, `Well follow you, I bit. I insisted on the right to approve the rough cut. So there I was, safe, everything fine,”

“If I asked for a (stage) light, it was not an ask but a demand. If I demanded, I was having a fit,”

“When he was sitting with you, would he be witty? No,”

“How do you tell how a man has been funny? How do you do the sound of his voice? The turn of his face? But I will tell you he was as funny as any man Ive ever seen.”

I am in the Master of Professional Writing program teaching Humor Writing, Literary and Dramatic.

As a culture I see us as presently deprived of subtleties. The music is loud, the anger is elevated, sex seems lacking in sweetness and privacy.

The old problems - love, money, security, status, health, etc. - are still here to plague us or please us.

While youre improvising, you may come up with something which will break him up. As soon as that smile comes out, you know that, hey, were having fun.