More people saw me than saw Napoleon, Lincoln and Cleopatra. I was better known than Einstein and Picasso. ... I changed the fashion of two continents. The style of the Gay Nineties became the rage ... women were trying to walk and talk like me. Women became more sex-conscious - sex was out in the open and fun.

If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.

I believe that one day the world will judge the witch hunt against homosexuals just as harshly as it judges the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust.

I like a man what takes his time.

Men are like linoleum floors. Lay 'em right and you can walk all over them for years.

JUDGE: Are you trying to show contempt for this court? MAE WEST: I was doin' my best to hide it.

Personality is the glitter that sends your little gleam across the footlights and the orchestra pit into that big black space where the audience is.