Daily Inspiration Quote by Mae West

Mae West turns courtship into a cruel joke about logistics: marriage, supposedly the grand romantic solution, becomes the only plausible exit strategy. The line works because it flips the usual power fantasy. Men are meant to “win” a woman; here, he’s so persistent, so unavoidable, that the only way to make him disappear is to take him to the altar and file him under “handled.” It’s romantic comedy with brass knuckles.

West’s persona was built on making desire sound like a negotiation she’s already winning. The insult isn’t just that he’s undesirable; it’s that he’s socially indestructible. He’s the type who hangs around, fills the room with entitlement, and treats a woman’s polite no as a puzzle to solve. So West weaponizes the institution that’s historically been used to contain women and turns it into a disposal chute for men. That’s the subtext: a woman’s “respectable” options are constrained, but her wit isn’t.

Context matters. West came up in an era when female sexuality onstage was policed, coded, and punished, then tightened further by Hollywood’s Production Code. Her solution was to smuggle frankness through double entendres: make the censors hear one thing while the audience hears the real one. The joke lands because it’s both flirtation and refusal, delivered with a wink that says she sees the game and she’s rigged it. Marriage, in West’s hands, isn’t destiny; it’s leverage.