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Why don't you come up sometime and see me?

Mary Jane West (August 17, 1893November 22, 1980) was an American actress and playwright, most commonly known as "Mae" West.

Quotes

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When I'm good, I'm very good. When I'm bad, I'm better.
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When you got the personality, you don't need the nudity.
  • Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.
    • Response to an exclamation, "Goodness! What beautiful diamonds!" in Night After Night (1932). She later used Goodness had nothing to do with it as the title of her (1953) autobiography.
  • Oh, Beulah, Peel me a grape.
    • I'm No Angel (1933)
  • I only like two kinds of men, domestic and foreign.
    • I'm No Angel (1933)
  • When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad, I'm better.
    • I'm No Angel (1933)
  • It's not the men in your life that count, it's the life in your men.
    • I'm No Angel (1933)
  • When women go wrong, men go right after them.
    • She Done Him Wrong (1933)
  • When I'm caught between two evils, I generally like to take the one I never tried.
  • You take one thing and add it to another and you get two. Two and two is four; and five'll get you ten if you know how to work it!
  • I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
  • I'm the kinda girl who works for Paramount by day, and Fox all night
    • Sextette (1978)
  • To her British lover about to climb in bed with 80-something Mae: She said that she hoped soon to be able to say what Paul Revere said — 'The British are coming'. This was the last one-liner Mae ever uttered on film.
    • Sextette (1978)
  • Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
  • When you got the personality, you don't need the nudity.
    • Quoted in "For Women, Monologues They Haven't Heard" by Susan Pomerance, Dramaline Publications (1985)
  • Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
    • #149 in The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said (2006) by Robert Byrne
  • Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.
    • #684 in The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said (2006) by Robert Byrne
  • I've been in more laps than a napkin.
    • #685 in The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said (2006) by Robert Byrne
  • She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
    • #832 in The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said (2006) by Robert Byrne


Misattributed

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  • You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
    • "One lives but once in the world" (or "man lebt nur einmal") has roots dating back to at least 1774 in Goethe's Clavigo, but the defining second clause "but if you do it right, once is enough" is attributed to West on social media. See YOLO.

External links

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