W C Fields Quotes

What would you do if you were President, and, on the first day of May, the Russian Ambassador presented you with a beautiful cake which emitted a curious ticking noise? Would you plunge it into a pail of water - thus insulting Soviet cuisine in general? ~ W.C. Fields

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation. ~ W.C. Fields

Prayers never bring anything ... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas ~ W.C. Fields

Anybody who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad. ~ Leo Rosten

Alcoholic: anybody who drinks more than I do. ~ W.C. Fields

I have a poor memory for names; but I seldom remember a face. ~ W.C. Fields

I have been advised by the best medical authority, at my age, not to attempt to give up alcohol. ~ W.C. Fields

I never met a kid I liked. ~ W.C. Fields

Anyone who hates children and animals can't be all bad. ~ W.C. Fields

I've been asked if I ever get the DTs. I don't know. It's hard to tell where Hollywood ends and the DTs begin. ~ W.C. Fields

When asked to borrow money: I'll see what my lawyer says ... And if he says yes, I'll get another lawyer. ~ W.C. Fields

I've been drunk only once in my life. But that lasted for twenty-three years. ~ W.C. Fields

I'm looking for loopholes. (Said when caught reading the Bible.). ~ W.C. Fields

I once donated a pint of my finest red corpuscles to the great American Red Cross and the doctor opined my blood was very helpful; contained so much alcohol they could use it to sterilize their instruments. ~ W.C. Fields

I know of only six genuine comic geniuses in movie history; Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Groucho Marx & Harpo Marx, Peter Sellers, and W.C. Fields. ~ Woody Allen

I never eat before breakfast. ~ W.C. Fields

I have spent a lot of time searching through the Bible for loopholes. ~ W.C. Fields

Set up another case bartender! The best thing for a case of nerves is a case of Scotch. ~ W.C. Fields

Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancee. ~ W.C. Fields

Comedy is merely tragedy happening to someone else. ~ W.C. Fields

A man who's intoxicated all the time doesn't need sympathy. ~ W.C. Fields

Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink. ~ W.C. Fields

When you wake up in the morning, smile - and get it over with. ~ W.C. Fields

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money ~ W.C. Fields

Business is an establishment that gives you the legal, even though unethical, right to screw the naive-right, left, and in the middle. ~ W.C. Fields

Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch. ~ W.C. Fields

I don't object to nine aces in one deck. But when a man lays down five aces in one hand ... and besides, I know what I dealt him! ~ W.C. Fields

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with. ~ W.C. Fields

Sex isn't necessary. You don't die without it, but you can die having it. ~ W.C. Fields

Take me down to the bar! We'll drink breakfast together! ~ W.C. Fields

There are better things than sex, but nothing quite like it. ~ W.C. Fields

He had a W.C. Fields twang and a nose like a prize strawberry. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Dentists, lawyers, doctors are all a bunch of thieving bastards. ~ W.C. Fields

Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer. ~ W.C. Fields

The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath. ~ W.C. Fields

Variant: I was driven to drink by a woman. I am forever grateful, yet I never had the good manners to thank her. ~ W.C. Fields

Ain't fit for man nor beast ~ W.C. Fields

The movie people would have nothing to do with me until they heard me speak in a Broadway play, then they all wanted to sign me for the silent movies. ~ W.C. Fields

In the ten years since I had run away from home ... I had gone through more strange experiences than the average person crowds into a whole lifetime. ~ W.C. Fields

As the wit W. C. Fields advised: 'If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. There is no point making a fool of yourself.'
This advice is easy to give and difficult to put into practice, but as you build your strengths, sometimes making great progress, sometimes slipping back, take comfort from the fact that this is how a strong life is supposed to be lived. ~ Donald O. Clifton

I must have a drink of breakfast. ~ W.C. Fields

Where there is a will, there's prosperity around the corner. ~ W.C. Fields

I think of the church often. Not because religion was closing in on me, but because for a long time my ass was sore from that hard, unupholstered pew. ~ W.C. Fields

The cost of living has gone up another dollar a quart. ~ W.C. Fields

Beds are dangerous. More people die in bed than anywhere else. ~ W.C. Fields

I'd like to see Paris before I die ... Philadelphia will do. ~ W.C. Fields

When life hands you lemons, make whisky sours. ~ W.C. Fields

Hollywood is the gold cap on a tooth that should have been pulled out years ago. ~ W.C. Fields

Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil. ~ W.C. Fields

There is not a man in America who has not had a secret ambition to boot an infant. ~ W.C. Fields

I'm free of all prejudices. I hate all people equally. ~ W.C. Fields

You can fool some of the people some of the time
and that's enough to make a decent living. ~ W.C. Fields

I personally stay away from natural foods. At my age I need all the preservatives I can get. ~ W.C. Fields

Some people are born losers; others acquire the knack gradually. ~ W.C. Fields

I've never hit a woman in my life. Not even my own mother. ~ W.C. Fields

I'd rather have two girls at 21 each than one girl at 42. ~ W.C. Fields

I'd take a Bromo, but I can't stand the noise. ~ W.C. Fields

No doubt exists that all women are crazy; it's only a question of degree. ~ W.C. Fields

You both love Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Hawthorne and Melville, Flaubert and Stendahl, but at that stage of your life you cannot stomach Henry James, while Gwyn argues that he is the giant of giants, the colossus who makes all other novelists look like pygmies. You are in complete harmony about the greatness of Kafka and Beckett, but when you tell her that Celine belongs in their company, she laughs at you and calls him a fascist maniac. Wallace Stevens yes, but next in line for you is William Carlos Williams, not T.S. Eliot, whose work Gwyn can recite from memory. You defend Keaton, she defends Chaplin, and while you both howl at the sight of the Marx Brothers, your much-adored W.C. Fields cannot coax a single smile from her. Truffaut at his best touches you both, but Gwyn finds Godard pretentious and you don't, and while she lauds Bergman and Antonioni as twin masters of the universe, you reluctantly tell her that you are bored by their films. No conflicts about classical music, with J.S. Bach at the top of the list, but you are becoming increasingly interested in jazz, while Gwyn still clings to the frenzy of rock and roll, which has stopped saying much of anything to you. She likes to dance, and you don't. She laughs more than you do and smokes less. She is a freer, happier person than you are, and whenever you are with her, the world seems brighter and more welcoming, a place where your sullen, introverted self can almost begin to feel at home. ~ Paul Auster

Women are like elephants. I like to look at 'em, but I wouldn't want to own one. ~ W.C. Fields

The low-ceiling price bazaar for sexual relief was a street called Middie Alley. You could barely get a pushcart through this avenue. Top price-twenty-five cents. ~ W.C. Fields

I've been on a 46-year diet of olives and alcohol. The latter I consume. The former I save and use over again in more alcohol. In my lifetime, I imagine, I have consumed at least $200,000 worth of whisky. ~ W.C. Fields

Scotch needs water like a fish needs a bicycle. ~ W.C. Fields

Never eat at a place called 'Moms', but if the only other place in town has a sign that says 'Eats', go back to Moms. ~ W.C. Fields

During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. We were compelled to live on food and water for several days. ~ W.C. Fields

Thou shalt not steal-only from other comedians. ~ W.C. Fields

Reality is an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol. ~ W.C. Fields

I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally. ~ W.C. Fields

I believe in tying the marriage knot, as long as it's around the woman's neck ~ W.C. Fields

I can do anything I want to do! ~ W.C. Fields

How well I remember my first encounter with The Devil'ss Brew. I happened to stumble across a case of bourbon - and went right on stumbling for several days thereafter. ~ W.C. Fields

No one likes the fellow who is all rogue, but we'll forgive him almost anything if there is warmth of human sympathy underneath his rogueries. The immortal types of comedy are just such men. ~ W.C. Fields

All Englishmen talk as if they've got a bushel of plums stuck in their throats, and then after swallowing them get constipated from the pips. ~ W.C. Fields

The nation needs to return to the colonial way of life, when a wife was judged by the amount of wood she could split. ~ W.C. Fields

Never try to impress a woman, because if you do she'll expect you to keep up the standard for the rest of your life. ~ W.C. Fields

Children should neither be seen nor heard from – ever again. ~ W.C. Fields

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. ~ W.C. Fields

The funniest thing about comedy is that you never know why people laugh. I know what makes them laugh but trying to get your hands on the why of it is like trying to pick an eel out of a tub of water. ~ W.C. Fields

I didn't say the meat was tough. I said I didn't see the horse that is usually outside. ~ W.C. Fields

I always keep some whiskey handy in case I see a snake ... which I also keep handy. ~ W.C. Fields

Children should neither be seen or heard from - ever again. ~ W.C. Fields

It is funnier to bend things than to break them. ~ W.C. Fields

The advantages of whiskey over dogs are legion. Whiskey does not need to be periodically wormed, it does not need to be fed, it never requires a special kennel, it has no toenails to be clipped or coat to be stripped. Whiskey sits quietly in its special nook until you want it. True, whiskey has a nasty habit of running out, but then so does a dog. ~ W.C. Fields

My dad's sense of humor was direct and sometimes surreal - his quick wit is well known amongst our family and friends. He raised me on Spike Jones records and W.C. Fields movies, and his sense of humor fell somewhere in between. ~ Tony Visconti

It's quite true I'm not drinking anymore; however, I'm not drinking any less either. ~ W.C. Fields

My heart is a bargain today. Will you take it? ~ W.C. Fields

Ultimately chess is just chess - not the best thing in the world and not the worst thing in the world, but there is nothing quite like it. ~ W.C. Fields

I only drink to steady my nerves ... sometimes I'm so steady I don't move for months. ~ W.C. Fields

I didn't squawk about the steak, dear. I merely said I didn't see that old horse that used to be tethered outside here. ~ W.C. Fields

What a gorgeous day. What effulgent sunshine. It was a day of this sort the McGillicuddy brothers murdered their mother with an ax. ~ W.C. Fields

And then there was the sad sign that a young woman working at a Tim Hortons in Lethbridge, Alberta, taped to the drive-through window in 2007. It read, "No Drunk Natives."

Accusations of racism erupted, Tim Hortons assured everyone that their coffee shops were not centres for bigotry, but what was most interesting was the public response. For as many people who called in to radio shows or wrote letters to the Lethbridge Herald to voice their outrage over the sign, there were almost as many who expressed their support for the sentiment. The young woman who posted the sign said it had just been a joke.

Now, I'll be the first to say that drunks are a problem. But I lived in Lethbridge for ten years, and I can tell you with as much neutrality as I can muster that there were many more White drunks stumbling out of the bars on Friday and Saturday nights than there were Native drunks. It's just that in North America, White drunks tend to be invisible, whereas people of colour who drink to excess are not.

Actually, White drunks are not just invisible, they can also be amusing. Remember how much fun it was to watch Dean Martin, Red Skelton, W. C. Fields, John Wayne, John Barrymore, Ernie Kovacs, James Stewart, and Marilyn Monroe play drunks on the screen and sometimes in real life? Or Jodie Marsh, Paris Hilton, Cheryl Tweedy, Britney Spears, and the late Anna Nicole Smith, just to mention a few from my daughter's generation. And let's not forget some ~ Thomas King

It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking: the arrival of a friend, one's present or future thirst, the excellence of the cognac, or any other reason ~ W.C. Fields

I note the derogatory rumors concerning the use of alcoholic stimulants and lavish living. It is the penalty of greatness. ~ W.C. Fields

It's a funny old world. A man's lucky if he gets out of it alive. ~ W.C. Fields

I like my films to influence the audience. Even if it means tripping their aged grandparents with a cane when they get home. ~ W.C. Fields

Indeed, moderation is my middle name (though I do not often use it in signing legal documents) ~ W.C. Fields

We frequently hear of people dying from too much drinking. That this happens is a matter of record. But the blame is always placed on whisky. Why this should be I never could understand. You can die from drinking too much of anything - coffee, water, milk, soft drinks and all such stuff as that. And so as long as the presence of death lurks with anyone who goes through the simple act of swallowing. I will make mine whisky. ~ W.C. Fields

Was I in here last night and did I spend a $20 bill?
Oh, thank goodness ... I thought I'd lost it. ~ W.C. Fields

I drink with impunity ... or anyone else who invites me. ~ W.C. Fields

I once spent a year in Philadelphia, I think it was on a Sunday. ~ W.C. Fields