Marriage Quote by Milton Berle

Berle lands the joke by dressing dread up in celebrity gossip. Zsa Zsa Gabor, tabloid royalty with a famously crowded marital resume, becomes a cultural shorthand for a role so rehearsed it barely counts as living. “Sixth husband” isn’t just a number; it’s the punchline’s engine: by that point, the ritual has hardened into routine, the public already knows the beats, and the participant is interchangeable. Berle’s target isn’t marriage as much as performance itself.

The line’s sly confession is professional. “I know what I’m supposed to do” is the voice of a veteran entertainer staring at the mechanics of his craft: set-up, timing, charm, the expected gestures. But “I don’t know how to make it interesting” is the panic beneath the greasepaint, the fear that competence has started to look like autopilot. It’s self-deprecation that protects the ego while admitting a deeper anxiety: the audience’s appetite is fickle, novelty is a currency, and repetition is death.

Context matters: Berle helped invent early television stardom, a medium built on relentless weekly output. TV doesn’t reward the slow burn; it demands fresh bits on a schedule, and it exposes the seams when a performer is running on habit. By invoking Gabor - a woman turned into a spectacle of glamour and serial romance - Berle is also winking at showbiz’s assembly line of “new” narratives. The subtext is bleakly funny: even intimacy, like entertainment, can become a contract gig, and the hardest part isn’t knowing your part - it’s keeping it from looking like one.