Milton Berle, often referred to as “Mr. Television,” was a legendary American comedian and actor who played a pivotal role in the early days of television. Born in New York City, Berle began his entertainment career as a child actor in vaudeville before transitioning to radio and eventually television. He became a household name with “The Milton Berle Show,” which debuted in 1948 and quickly became one of the most popular programs on television. Berle’s comedic style was marked by his rapid-fire delivery, slapstick humor, and larger-than-life persona. He was known for his versatility, seamlessly transitioning between sketches, stand-up comedy, and musical performances. Berle’s influence on the medium of television cannot be overstated, as he played a significant role in popularizing the medium and paving the way for future generations of comedians and entertainers. He remains an iconic figure in American entertainment history, celebrated for his comedic talent and contributions to television.
Milton Berle Quotes
1. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
— Milton Berle
2. “Laughter is an instant vacation.”
— Milton Berle
3. “Laughter is the best medicine in the world.”
— Milton Berle
4. “A good wife always forgives her husband when she’s wrong.”
— Milton Berle
5. “My doctor told me that jogging could add years to my life. I think he was right. I feel ten years older already.”
— Milton Berle
6. “This is how it is today: The teachers are afraid of the principals. The principals are afraid of the superintendents. The superintendents are afraid of the board of education. The board is afraid of the parents. The parents are afraid of the children. The children are afraid of nothing!”
— Milton Berle
7. “I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.”
— Milton Berle
8. “If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?”
— Milton Berle
9. “Some kids want to know why the teachers get paid when it’s the kids who have to do all the work.”
— Milton Berle
10. “I live to laugh, and I laugh to live.”
— Milton Berle
11. “Money can’t buy you happiness. It just helps you look for it in more places.”
— Milton Berle
12. “There are a lot of things money can’t buy. Not one of them is on my son’s list.”
— Milton Berle
13. “They’ve finally come up with the perfect office computer. If it makes a mistake, it blames another computer.”
— Milton Berle
14. “The human brain is special. It starts working as soon as you get up and it doesn’t stop until you get to school.”
— Milton Berle
15. “My wife and I were shopping for the whole family. In the music department my wife said, “Let’s get your nephew a set of drums. That’s what your brother did to us last year.””
— Milton Berle
16. “Just remember, golf is flog spelled backwards.”
— Milton Berle
17. “The problem with life is, by the time you can read women like a book, your library card has expired.”
— Milton Berle
18. “My wife and I have a perfect understanding. I don’t try to run her life, and I don’t try to run mine.”
— Milton Berle
19. “I made a terrible mistake last Christmas. My wife made me swear that I wouldn’t give her a fancy gift. And I didn’t.”
— Milton Berle
20. “A man falls down a flight of stairs and somebody rushes over to him and asks, Did you miss a step? No, he answers, I hit every one of them!”
— Milton Berle
21. “My wife calls our waterbed the Dead Sea.”
— Milton Berle
22. “Marriage is one of the few institutions that allow a man to do as his wife pleases.”
— Milton Berle
23. “Most attorneys practice law because it gives them a grand and glorious feeling. You give them a grand – and they feel glorious.”
— Milton Berle
24. “Valentine’s Day is the day when you remember that Cupid was a lousy shot.”
— Milton Berle
25. “A young man fills out an application for a job and does well until he gets to the last question, “Who Should we notify in case of an accident?” He mulls it over and then writes, “Anybody in sight!””
— Milton Berle
26. “The Post Office is very careful nowadays. When they get a package marked “Fragile,” they throw it underhand.”
— Milton Berle
27. “I bought my son a bat for Christmas. On New Year’s it flew away.”
— Milton Berle
28. “My son really has the spirit of Valentine’s Day. When he was in college, he used to send his mother a heart-shaped box of laundry.”
— Milton Berle
29. “You’re aging when your actions creak louder than your words.”
— Milton Berle
30. “Talk about cheap – on Christmas Eve, my neighbour shoots off three blanks and tells his kids Santa Claus just committed suicide.”
— Milton Berle
31. “When I was in school, one of my teachers was crazy about me. I once heard her tell another teacher, “I wish he was my kid for one day!””
— Milton Berle
32. “A thing of beauty is a job forever.”
— Milton Berle
33. “In Washington, a man gets up to speak and doesn’t say a thing, and the other men disagree with him for three hours.”
— Milton Berle
34. “Our tree was so puny we used orthopedic bulbs.”
— Milton Berle
35. “All my wife wanted for Valentine’s Day was a little card – American Express.”
— Milton Berle
36. “I take New Years with a grain of salt and three aspirins.”
— Milton Berle
37. “It’s amazing how fast later comes when you buy now!”
— Milton Berle
38. “If you hire relatives, you’ll have a payroll that won’t quit.”
— Milton Berle
39. “My sister-in-law found a real surprise in her stockings – my brother.”
— Milton Berle
40. “Committee – a group of men who keep minutes and waste hours.”
— Milton Berle
41. “I gave my wife a gift certificate for Christmas. She ran out to exchange it for a bigger size.”
— Milton Berle
42. “My son asked for very little – a kickstand, with a motorcycle attached.”
— Milton Berle
43. “On Valentine’s Day, I wired flowers for my mother-in-law, but she found the fuse.”
— Milton Berle
44. “We inherit a lot from our parents: mom’s eyes, dad’s chin, and the attitude of whichever parent isn’t punishing you at the moment. All of those things we have our mom’s to thank for.“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?””
— Milton Berle
45. “I have a brother who is afraid to go to sleep, he dreams he’s working.”
— Milton Berle
46. “My son gave me a nice bottle of cologne – Eau de Owe.”
— Milton Berle
47. “My brother applied for work, but was told by the company that it had more employees than it needed. My brother said, “Don’t worry. The little bit of work I do won’t be noticed !!!””
— Milton Berle
48. “Folk who don’t know why America is the Land of Promise should be here during an election campaign.”
— Milton Berle
49. “Nowadays, when a speaker tells the graduates that the future is theirs – is that a promise or a threat?”
— Milton Berle
50. “It was a tough school. The kids on the debating team took steroids!”
— Milton Berle
51. “Santa is having a tough time this year. Last year he deducted eight billion for gifts, and the IRS wants an itemized list.”
— Milton Berle
52. “It’s always consoling to know that today’s Christmas gifts are tomorrow’s garage sales.”
— Milton Berle
53. “I just read about a schoolteacher who got hurt. She was grading papers on a curve!”
— Milton Berle
54. “He was such a bad writer, they revoked his poetic license.”
— Milton Berle
55. “My son has a big Christmas problem – what do you buy for a father who has everything and you’re using it?”
— Milton Berle
56. “I don’t date women my age. There aren’t any.”
— Milton Berle
57. “Jews don’t drink much because it interferes with their suffering.”
— Milton Berle
58. “For every studen with a spark of brilliance, there are about ten with ignition trouble.”
— Milton Berle
59. “You can’t believe everything you hear, but it’s fun to repeat it anyway.”
— Milton Berle
60. “I don’t mind personal insults, but when you insult the jokes that I tell you’re insulting Fred Allen, Bob Hope, Burns and Allen, Trevor McGee and Molly Picon.”
— Milton Berle
61. “One of those Christmas songs says, “You better not shout, you better not cry, you better not pout.” How’s my wife going to get along?”
— Milton Berle
62. “I bought my mother-in-law a beautiful chair for Christmas, but she won’t let me plug it in.”
— Milton Berle
63. “Why are we honoring this man? Have we run out of human beings?”
— Milton Berle
64. “I never stole a joke in my life. I just find them before they’re lost.”
— Milton Berle
65. “I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor’s sixth husband. I know what I’m supposed to do, but I don’t know how to make it interesting.”
— Milton Berle
66. “This man’s wife told him, “For Christmas, surprise me.” On Christmas Eve he leaned over where she was sleeping and said, “Boo!””
— Milton Berle
67. “I know why superman left krypton. Earth was the only place where he could get steriods!”
— Milton Berle
68. “Your marriage is in trouble if your wife says, ‘You’re only interested in one thing,’ and you can’t remember what it is.”
— Milton Berle
69. “You look like a normal person, if you can find a normal person who wants to look like that.”
— Milton Berle
70. “For Christmas the just came out with a battery-operated battery. But the batteries aren’t included.”
— Milton Berle
71. “One teacher recently retired with a half-million dollars after 30 years of working hard, caring, dedicating herself and totally immensing herself in the problems of the students. That gave her $50. The rest of the money came from the death of a rich uncle.”
— Milton Berle
72. “I bought an ideal gift for my mother-in-law – a battery-operated mouth.”
— Milton Berle
73. “I can’t tell you his age, but when he was born the wonder drug was Mercurochrome.”
— Milton Berle
74. “At eighty-two, I feel like a twenty-year-old, but, unfortunately, there’s never one around.”
— Milton Berle
75. “Now that doctors have stopped making house calls, lots of patients now have to die without their help.”
— Milton Berle
76. “War toys are scary. They have a rocket launcher with a bayonet attached, in case you miss.”
— Milton Berle
77. “Valentine’s Day is like Armistice Day – you declare a truce.”
— Milton Berle
78. “In the suburbs it’s hard to buy your Christmas gifts early in the year. You never know who your friends will be in December.”
— Milton Berle
79. “They’ve got plastic Christmas trees now. They’re hard to tell from the real aluminum ones.”
— Milton Berle
80. “Do you realise that Eve was the only woman who ever took a man’s side?”
— Milton Berle
81. “Every year my boss used to give me a bottle of expensive brandy because I’d told him that my doctor suggested a drink once in a while. This year my boss gave me the name of a new doctor.”
— Milton Berle
82. “My wife wants something foreign for Christmas – like a Mexican divorce.”
— Milton Berle
83. “I gave my wife a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate. She used it as a down payment on a mink coat.”
— Milton Berle
84. “At the Christmas party, the secretary with the long red hair ate three pickles, and four salesmen panicked.”
— Milton Berle
85. “I like to do things for my wife on Valentine’s Day. I open the door for her when she puts laundry in the washing machine.”
— Milton Berle
86. “I was in a department store and I saw a weird-looking gadget. I asked the young saleslady what it was. She answered, “It doesn’t do anything. It’s just a Christmas gift.””
— Milton Berle
87. “Do you want to feel insecure? Count the number of Christmas cards you sent out, and then count those you received.”
— Milton Berle
88. “Who says we didn’t have controversial subjects on TV back in my time? Remember Bonanza? It was about three guys in high heels living together.”
— Milton Berle
89. “A man is hit by a car while crossing a Beverly Hills street. A woman rushes to him and cradles his head in her lap, asking, Are you comfortable? The man answers, I make a nice living.”
— Milton Berle
90. “I bought a Christmas tree for twenty dollars. When I came home the next day, my wife was wearing it in her hair.”
— Milton Berle
91. “I just bought a great gift for my boss – a leaky ant farm.”
— Milton Berle
92. “I like to think of myself as the middleman between Fred Allen and Henny Youngman.”
— Milton Berle
93. “The only thing that can break a piece of Valentine candy is another piece of Valentine candy.”
— Milton Berle
94. “My wife can’t figure out what to buy me. What do you give a man who’s had everything up to here?”
— Milton Berle
95. “An adult western is where the hero still kisses his horse at the end, only now he worries about it.”
— Milton Berle
96. “At Christmas you can get real bargains. I saw one item marked down ten dollars. It was a yacht.”
— Milton Berle
97. “My wife sent me a Valentine card that said, “Take my heart, take my lips, take my soul.” That’s just like her. She kept the good parts for herself.”
— Milton Berle
98. “Our local department store had two Santas – one for regular kids and one for kids who wanted ten toys or less.”
— Milton Berle
99. “What an orchestra! They just sit there, but their minds are thousands of miles away with their bookies.”
— Milton Berle
100. “I wanted to get the guy who works next to me in the office something he really wants, but how do you wrap up a saloon?”
— Milton Berle
101. “She was nice to him on Valentine’s Day. She gave him a heart-shaped rash.”
— Milton Berle
102. “It’s rough to go through life with your contents looking as if they settled during shipping.”
— Milton Berle
103. “We owe a lot to Thomas Edison-if it wasn’t for him, we’d be watching television by candlelight.”
— Milton Berle
104. “She wanted an Italian sports car – with the sport still in it.”
— Milton Berle
105. “I bought my son an indestructible toy. Yesterday he left it in the driveway. It broke my car.”
— Milton Berle
106. “The last time I saw Marilyn was in late 1959, when I appeared in Let’s Make Love at Fox. The wide-eyed Marilyn I had first known was gone. This Marilyn was more beautiful than ever.”
— Milton Berle
107. “My wife is a real Puritan. She thinks licking the stamp on the envelope of a Valentine is foreplay.”
— Milton Berle
108. “You don’t need to travel, laughter is an instant vacation.”
— Milton Berle
109. “I bought my kid an educational toy to help him make it through life. No matter how you put it together, it’s wrong.”
— Milton Berle
110. “Sir, I didn’t deserve the grade you gave me on this test. Do you know a lower one?”
— Milton Berle
111. “Valentine’s Day – a nice holiday because it’s the first day of the rest of your wife.”
— Milton Berle
