Shelley Berman quotes:

The Steve Allen Sunday night show had the right to two options after my first performance.

The most memorable performance was my appearance in concert in Carnegie Hall. The first standup to do so.

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

I am presently in my thirteenth year of teaching a graduate course at the University of Southern California.

My first job was at a Chicago night club called Mr. Kelly's.

Incidentally, I'm still looking for acting work, my first love.

I quit smoking well over twenty years ago.

As much experience, education and awareness as one can attain is important for a comedian.

Outside came in '60. The Edge in '61. All three made Gold, but the biggest seller was Inside.

I was an actor before becoming a comedian.

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.

Though it sold very well, I hated The Edge.

I heard the other day of a man who paid a psychologist $50 to cure him of an inferiority complex - and later was fined $25 and costs for talking back to a traffic cop.

Unquestionably, standup comedy is and has always been an art form.

I believe it is important for comedians to know who came before them.

My whole act is confession.

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

I developed several comedy phone calls.

Inside was the second LP album of a comedian's performance before an audience.

The most unusual salesman I ever met is a fellow who made a modest fortune purveying lightning rods. But he suddenly lost interest in his work. He got caught in a storm with a bunch of samples in his arms.

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

A hotel is a place that keeps the manufacturers of 25-watt bulbs in business.

I am careful with my material and presentation.

I will always love to perform standup comedy.

If you've never met a student from the University of Chicago, I'll 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.

We teach reading, writing and math by [having students do] them. But we teach democracy by lecture.