W.c. Fields Quotes

I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.

It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.

I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

I never hold a grudge. As soon as I get even with the son-of-a bitch, I forget it.

Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.

I don't drink water. Fish fuck in it.

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money

Fell in love with a beautiful blonde once. Drove me to drink. And I never had the decency to thank her.

I like children. If they're properly cooked.

A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

As W.C. Fields once said: a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.

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.

Marry an outdoors woman. That way, if you have to throw her out into the yard for the night, she can still survive.

Ah, the patter of little feet around the house. There's nothing like having a midget for a butler.

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

The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.

Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.

Take me down to the bar! We'll drink breakfast together!

You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it.

I always keep some whiskey handy in case I see a snake...which I also keep handy.

You can fool some of the people some of the time -- and that's enough to make a decent living.

It is funnier to bend things than to break them.

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

Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.

I once spent a year in Philadelphia, I think it was on a Sunday.

Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.

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

What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?

If I had to live my life over, I'd live over a saloon.

There's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.

Children should neither be seen nor heard from – ever again.

Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.

I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.

Goddamn the whole fucking world and everyone in it except you, Carlotta!

When we have lost everything, including hope, life becomes a disgrace, and death a duty.

All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia

I've never hit a woman in my life. Not even my own mother.

We’re flimflam artists. But remember, sonny, you can’t con people unless they’re greedy to begin with. W. C. Fields had it right. You can’t cheat an honest man.

Just like my Uncle Charlie used to say, just before he sprung the trap: He said, "You can't cheat and honest man! Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump!

Philadelphia, wonderful town, spent a week there one night

Never give a sucker an even break.

The news of my death is greatly exaggerated.

Ain't fit for man nor beast

Don't be a luddy-duddy! Don't be a mooncalf! Don't be a jabbernowl! You're not those, are you?

Never trust a man who doesn't drink.

I'm free of all prejudices. I hate all people equally.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it. - W.C. Fields

Here lies W.C.Fields. I'd rather be living in Philadelphia.

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

Always smile first thing in the morning. Might as well get it over with.

Drowned in a vat of whiskey... Oh Death, where is thy sting?

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.

It ain't what they call you; it's what you answer to.

Lastly, remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: “It ain’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to.

Beds are dangerous. More people die in bed than anywhere else.

I was in love with a beautiful blond once. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I'm indebted to her for.

Women are crazy about pets. They're just crazy. Pets have nothing to do with it.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it. —W. C. FIELDS

remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: “It ain’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to.

IF A THING IS WORTH HAVING, ITS WORTH CHEATING FOR.

Waitress: Don't be so free with your hands. Fields: Listen honey, I was only trying to guess your weight.

Women are like elephants to me. I like to look at 'em, but I wouldn't want to own one.

To paraphrase W.C. Fields, the bastard drove me to drink and I forgot to thank him.

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.

as credited to quoted by W, C. Fields I spent half my money on Gambling Alcohol and Wild Women, the other half I wasted

For the written record in this personal document, let me simply say to me, Groucho Marx, W. C. Fields, and Elaine May are indisputably funny, with S.J. Perelman the funniest human of my time on earth.

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 of our politicians and persons of power who control the fates of nations: Winston Churchill, John A. Macdonald, Boris Yeltsin, George Bush, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Hard drinkers, every one. The somewhat uncomfortable point I’m making is that we don’t seem to mind our White drunks. They’re no big deal so long as they’re not driving. But if they are driving drunk, as have Canada’s coffee king Tim Horton, the ex-premier of Alberta Ralph Klein, actors Kiefer Sutherland and Mel Gibson, Super Bowl star Lawyer Milloy, or the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Mark Bell, we just hope that they don’t hurt themselves. Or others. More to the point, they get to make their mistakes as individuals and not as representatives of an entire race.

If you work and do pure research in this industry as long as I have – and you actually pay attention and do your homework, then this naked and raw truth stands out -> The supplement world of cancer-fighters, CAD-preventers, health-promoters, magic-water – AND/OR - muscle-builders, fat-burners and weight-loss agents – all of them – already have an over-crowded mass grave-yard of previous magic bullets that would supposedly make your life and/or body better – Yes, so promising and heavily promoted “this” era – but so dead and gone the next – leaving in their wake a trail of mass-consumer confusion – but also leaving their actual intention -> a new generation of passive consumers – those who can’t differentiate the sizzle from the steak. Or as W.C. Fields put it so long ago – “There’s a sucker born every minute.” -> There isn’t a supplement on the planet that marks the difference between ‘health or ill-health’ – or between ‘fit or fat.’ - or between ‘results and stagnation.

But never delude yourself into believing that you require someone else’s blessing (or even their comprehension) in order to make your own creative work. And always remember that people’s judgments about you are none of your business. Lastly, remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: “It ain’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to.” Actually, don’t even bother answering. Just keep doing your thing.

In the 1970s, researchers conducted a study that pitted a moral incentive against an economic incentive. In this case, they wanted to learn about the motivation behind blood donations. Their discovery: when people are given a small stipend for donating blood rather than simply being praised for their altruism, they tend to donate less blood. The stipend turned a noble act of charity into a painful way to make a few dollars, and it wasn’t worth it. What if the blood donors had been offered an incentive of $50, or $500, or $5,000? Surely the number of donors would have changed dramatically. But something else would have changed dramatically as well, for every incentive has its dark side. If a pint of blood were suddenly worth $5,000, you can be sure that plenty of people would take note. They might literally steal blood at knifepoint. They might pass off pig blood as their own. They might circumvent donation limits by using fake IDs. Whatever the incentive, whatever the situation, dishonest people will try to gain an advantage by whatever means necessary. Or, as W. C. Fields once said: a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

In a study of the components of lying,2 Harvard Business School professor Deepak Malhotra and his coauthors found that, on average, liars use more words than truth tellers and use far more third-person pronouns. They start talking about him, her, it, one, they, and their rather than I, in order to put some distance between themselves and the lie. And they discovered that liars tend to speak in more complex sentences in an attempt to win over their suspicious counterparts. It’s what W. C. Fields meant when he talked about baffling someone with bullshit. The researchers dubbed this the Pinocchio Effect because, just like Pinocchio’s nose, the number of words grew along with the lie. People who are lying are, understandably, more worried about being believed, so they work harder—too hard, as it were—at being believable.

There is a maid, demure as she is wise, With all of April in her winsome eyes, And to my tales she listens pensively, With slender fingers clasped about her knee, Watching the sparrows on the balcony. Shy eyes that, lifted up to me, Free all my heart of vanity; Clear eyes, that speak all silently, Sweet as the silence of a nunnery— Read, for I write my rede for you alone, Here where the city's mighty monotone Deepens the silence to a symphony— Silence of Saints, and Seers, and Sorcery. Arms and the Man! A noble theme, I ween! Alas! I can not sing of these, Eileen— Only of maids and men and meadow-grass, Of sea and fields and woodlands, where I pass; Nothing but these I know, Eileen, alas! Clear eyes that, lifted up to me, Free all my soul from vanity; Gray eyes, that speak all wistfully— Nothing but these I know, alas! R. W. C. April, 1896.

Justin Schmidt, an entomologist who studies venomous stings, created the Schmidt Sting Pain Index to quantify the pain inflicted by ants and other stinging creatures. His surprisingly poetic descriptions give some order to the hierarchy of ant stings as compared to those of bees and wasps: 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm. 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch. 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek. 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door. 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on tongue. 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin. 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail. 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut. 4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath. 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

There is a metaphor somewhere in the story Groucho liked to tell about an encounter with one of his most illustrious peers, W. C. Fields. Fields took Groucho up to his attic, where the astonished Groucho discovered, as he later described it, “$50,000 worth of booze up there in boxes. I said ‘Bill, why do you have all that whiskey up here? Don’t you know prohibition is over?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘It may come back.’” In

Some people are intensely competitive in seeking social status; others show little interest in the game. Some people dote on children; others take the attitude of W. C. Fields. Still, it is hard indeed to imagine anyone happy who had achieved none or only a few of those natural goods. Someone without health or wealth or family or social standing or friendship or a sense of purpose would seem to be in a very bad way, perhaps suicidally depressed

To paraphrase W.C. Fields, the bastard drove me to drink and I forgot to thank him

Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. The cool kids of the 1960s invited the old man who had been cool before they knew cool was cool to join them in a musical romp that nobody took particularly seriously. Crosby enjoys himself. He has nothing at stake, since he’s not the star who has to carry the film. He’s very casual, and appears to be ad-libbing all his lines in the old Road tradition with a touch of W. C. Fields’s colorful vocabulary thrown in: “You gentlemen find my raiment repulsive?” he asks Sinatra and Martin when they object to his character’s lack of chic flash in clothing. Crosby plays a clever con man who disguises himself as square, and his outfits reflect a conservative vibe in the eyes of the cats who are looking him over. The inquiry leads into a number, “Style,” in which Sinatra and Martin put Crosby behind closet doors for a series of humorous outfit changes, to try to spruce him up. Crosby comes out in a plaid suit with knickers and then in yellow pants and an orange-striped shirt. Martin and Sinatra keep on singing—and hoping—while Crosby models a fez. He finally emerges with a straw hat, a cane, and a boutonniere in his tuxedo lapel, looking like a dude. In his own low-key way, taking his spot in the center, right between the other two, Crosby joins in the song and begins to take musical charge. Sinatra is clearly digging Crosby, the older man he always wanted to emulate.*17 Both Sinatra and Martin are perfectly willing to let Crosby be the focus. He’s earned it. He’s the original that the other two wanted to become. He was there when Sinatra and Martin were still kids. He’s Bing Crosby! The three men begin to do a kind of old man’s strut, singing and dancing perfectly together (“…his hat got a little more shiny…”). The audience is looking at the three dominant male singers of the era from 1940 to 1977. They’re having fun, showing everyone exactly not only what makes a pro, not only what makes a star, but what makes a legend. Three great talents, singing and dancing about style, which they’ve all clearly got plenty of: Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin in Robin and the 7 Hoods

as credited to quoted by W, C. Fields I spent half my money on Gambling Alcohol and Wild Women, the other half I wasted . . . I'm at least a 51% er

About what you’d expect, was Gideon’s grumpy and uncharitable thought, if you crossed John Gielgud with W. C. Fields.

During the depression, W. C. Fields, the comedian, lost all his money, and found himself without income, without a job, and his means of earning a living (vaudeville) no longer existed. Moreover, he was past sixty, when many men consider themselves old. He was so eager to stage a comeback that he offered to work without pay, in a new field (movies). In addition to his other troubles, he fell and injured his neck. To many that would have been the place to give up and quit. But Fields was persistent. He knew that if he carried on he would get the breaks sooner or later, and he did get them, but not by chance. Marie Dressler found herself down and out, with her money gone, with no job, when she was about sixty. She, too, went after the “breaks,” and got them. Her persistence brought an astounding triumph late in life, long beyond the age when most men and women are done with ambition to achieve. Eddie Cantor lost his money in the 1929 stock crash, but he still had his persistence and his courage. With these, plus two prominent eyes, he exploited himself back into an income of $10,000 a week! Verily, if one has persistence, one can get along very well without many other qualities. The only break anyone can afford to rely upon is a self-made break. These come through the application of persistence. The starting point is definiteness of purpose. Examine the first hundred people you meet, ask them what they want most in life, and ninety-eight of them will not be able to tell you.

The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.

The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath. W. C. Fields (1880 – 1946)

The world is such a dangerous place a man is lucky to get out alive.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

It doesn’t matter in the least. Let people have their opinions. More than that—let people be in love with their opinions, just as you and I are in love with ours. But never delude yourself into believing that you require someone else’s blessing (or even their comprehension) in order to make your own creative work. And always remember that people’s judgments about you are none of your business. Lastly, remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: “It ain’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to.

Or, as W. C. Fields once said: a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

Once the city gets into a ba-hoys sa-hystem, he loses the ha-hankerin' for the ca-hountry.

If Falstaff had stuck to martinis, he'd be with us today.

Nunca bebo agua, me preocupa que pueda convertirse en un hábito.

Fields: " I'm tendin' bar one time down the lower east-side in New York. A tough paloma comes in there by the name of Chicago Molly. I cautioned her: 'none of your peccadilloes in here'. There was some hot lunch on the bar comprising succotach, philadelphia cream cheese and asparagus with mayonaisse. She dips her mitt down into this melange - I'm yawning at the time - and she hits me right in the mug with it. I jumps over the bar and knocks her down...You were there the night I knocked Chicago Molly down weren't you?" Bartender: " You knocked her down? I was the one that knocked her down". Fields: "Oh yeah ,yes. That's right. He knocked her down. But I was the one start kicking her! So I starts kicking her in the midriff. D'you ever kick a woman in the midriff that had a pair of corsets on?" Customer: "No, I just can't recall any such incident". Fields: "Well I almost broke my great toe. Never had such a painful experience". Customer: "Did she ever come back?" Bartender:"I'll say she came back. She came back a week later and beat the both of us up". Fields: "Yeah but she had another woman with her. Elderly lady with grey hair.

at the Lakeside course with Tammany

W. C. Fields once said: a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

As W. C. Fields once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again . . . then give up. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.

Remember, a dead fish can float down stream, it takes a live one to swim against the current. W. C. Fields

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” —W. C. Fields