I’ve recently come across a collection of W. C. Fields’ Martini and cocktail quotes. I’m always looking for such quotes to add to my existing quote page (Martini Quotes) and have added these latest finds.
No collection of bar quotes would be complete without some of Mr. Fields’ musings and we can all quote a few of his more famous comments, but I never realized how prolific he was. Here are my latest additions:
“…more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol.”
Now don’t say you can’t swear off drinking; it’s easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.
How well I remember my first encounter with The Devil’s Brew. I happened to stumble across a case of bourbon — and went right on stumbling for several days thereafter.
Back in my rummy days, I would tremble and shake for hours upon arising. It was the only exercise I got.
Thou shalt not kill anything less than a fifth.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house unless they have a well-stocked bar.
Somebody’s been putting pineapple juice in my pineapple juice!
Charlie McCarthy: “Say, Mr. Fields, I read in the paper where you consumed two quarts of liquor a day. What would your father think about that?” WC: “He’d think I was a sissy.”
I don’t believe in dining on an empty stomach.
Say anything that you like about me except that I drink water.
Of course, now I touch nothing stronger than buttermilk: 90-proof buttermilk.
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
I never drank anything stronger than beer before I was twelve.
I seldom took a drink on the set before 9 a.m.
(Fields gave this rationale for not drinking water:) “Fish f**k in it.”
(Fields, who never got falling-down drunk, explained why:) “When you woo a wet goddess, there’s no use falling at her feet.”
Fields’ retort from his dressing room after a director had shouted, “Camera reloading!” – “Fields reloading!”
(After a Universal executive wondered aloud if Fields drank all the time, the enraged comedian retorted:) “I certainly do not drink all the time. I have to sleep you know.”
I was in love with a beautiful blonde once. She drove me to drink; that’s the one thing I’m indebted to her for.
“I take inordinate pride in my nose. Indeed, I have treatment done on it every day” (At this point, Fields lifts a glass.) “My daily treatment.”
My illness is due to my doctor’s insistence that I drink milk, a whitish fluid they force down helpless babies.
I like to keep a bottle of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy.
Sleep…the most beautiful experience in life–except drink.
Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. While everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we’ll be seeing six or seven.”
Just a little info on Mr. Fields for those interested (courtesy of Wikipedia):
W. C. Fields (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer. Fields’ comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist, who remained a sympathetic character despite his snarling contempt for dogs and children.
His career in show business began in vaudeville, where he attained international success as a silent juggler. He gradually incorporated comedy into his act, and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies for several years. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy (1923), in which he played a colorful small-time con man. His subsequent stage and film roles were often similar scoundrels, or else henpecked everyman characters.