W.C. Fields Quotes

The principle was right there - you couldn't miss it. The more we did for our customers, the more they did for us.

You know, Mrs. Fields was never a business. It was a part of me...and I never separated, oh, well, business from personal because to me they all blended together.

If you think you can, then you’re half way there. If you say, ‘I can’t,’ then you’re defeated.

Never give up. The bankers and financial people did not take me seriously initially. Everyone thought I would fail. My attitude was that 'No' is an unacceptable answer when it comes to financing.

Because what nobody ever understood is that I, too, wanted to be a somebody. But how do you go through life wanting to be a someone and not knowing how?

Remember, the greatest failure is not to try.

I'm in the mood for love, simply because you're near me. Funny, but when you're near me I'm in the mood for love.

I don't care how good a song is. If it holds back the storyline, stalls the plot, your audience will reject it.

A song doesn't just come on. I've always had to tease it out, squeeze it out. 'No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.

I do not think men have more talent. There are a great many women in the arts; novelists, painters, sculptors, poets-but the proportion is far lower in the field of song writing.

In a show or a movie, one must work with many people. Many women just don't have the time for it.

The songwriter mustn't fall in love with his own song. If it doesn't belong, he can't push it into a show. Let him save it; maybe it'll fit in another show.

I began to be impressed by what made a good book-how you needed to have a sensible story, a plot that developed, with a beginning, a middle, and an end that would tie everything together.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning could write a poem two pages long. Could she have brought it to a music publisher?

A song just doesn't come on. I've always had to tease it out, squeeze it out.

Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl very gravely got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic.

Let heaven-eyed Prudence battle with Desire.

I never drink water... fish f**k in it.

I've been barbecued, stewed, screwed, tattooed, and fried by people claiming to be my friends. The human race has gone backward, not forward, since the days we were apes swinging through the trees.

All my available funds are completely tied up in cash.

Marriage is better than leprosy only because it's easier to get rid of.

I like thieves. Some of my best friends are thieves. Why, just last week we had the president of the bank over for dinner.

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

No man is boss in his own home, but he can make up for it, he thinks, by making a dog play dead.

Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable statistics which prove that more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol.

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.

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

Buried my wife the other day. Had to, she died.

I'm looking for loopholes.

Remember, Lady Godiva put all she had on a horse and she lost her shirt!

I never met a kid I liked.

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

I'd take a Bromo, but I can't stand the noise.

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

I could juggle anything in my day. Balls, cigar boxes, knives...But there was one thing I could never juggle. My income tax.

Smile first thing in the morning. Get it over with.

To me, these biblical stories are just so many fish stories, and I'm not specifically referring to Jonah and the whale. I need indisputable proof of anything I'm asked to believe.

The Punkwat twins! Brentwood is the world's smallest giant, whilst his brother, Elwood, is the largest midget in the world. They baffle science!

Ye Gads, no! I couldn't stand the noise.

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

In every big city there is always one surefire laugh, and that lies in hanging some piece of idiocy upon the people of a nearby city or town.

Thou shalt not steal-only from other comedians.

I would rather be living in Philadelphia.

I don't know why I ever come in here. The flies get the best of everything.

I seldom took a drink on the set before 9 a.m.

California is the only state in the union where you can fall asleep under a rose bush in full bloom and freeze to death.

There are seven natural openings in the head and body. A lawyer is the only human being with eight. The extra one is a slot to store money in, should his bank be unable to hold all of it.

It's a wonderful thing, the D.T.'s. You can travel the world in a couple of hours. You see some mighty funny and curious things that come in assorted colors.

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.

Here is my best advice on the matter of deductibles: just count off on your fingers all the items that you suspect might be deductible - and then forget them, because they aren't.