Reason was nowhere, time was an immovable object nailed high on the wall, except where the world kept shop.
Mae West[On the metaphysical:] ... I knew in some marvelous way I had touched the hem of the unknown. And being me, I wanted to lift that hemline a little bit more.
Mae WestDress gives one the outward sign from which people in general can, and often do, judge upon the inward state of mind and feelings.
Mae WestI never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.
Mae WestTira: Whatever you're thinkin' you're wrong. I only like him like a brother. You ain't got nothin' to worry about. . . . Say listen you. A better dame than you once called me a liar and they had to sew her up in twelve different places. You're lucky I'm a little more refined than I used to be. And if you was as much a lady as I am, you'd get out of here before I get real sore. Alicia: You haven't a streak of decency in you. Tira: I don't show my good points to strangers. I'll trouble you to scram.
Mae WestGood women are no fun... The only good woman I can recall in history was Betsy Ross. And all she ever made was a flag.
Mae WestIs that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? (She made this remark in February 1936, at the railway station in Los Angeles upon her return from Chicago, when a Los Angeles police officer was assigned to escort her home)
Mae WestFor a long time I was ashamed of the way I lived. Did I reform, you ask? No. I'm not ashamed anymore.
Mae WestIt isn't what I do, but how I do it. It isn't what I say, but how I say it, and how I look when I do it and say it.
Mae WestMore 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.
Mae West