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Wealth & Money Quote by Bobby Heenan

"If you're poor and you do something stupid, you're nuts. If you're rich and do something stupid, you're eccentric"

About this Quote

Heenan’s line lands like a punchline because it’s built on a trick the audience already knows is true: the same behavior gets renamed depending on who’s doing it. “Nuts” is a diagnosis, a social downgrade; “eccentric” is branding, an indulgent wink. The joke isn’t just that rich people get away with more. It’s that language itself becomes a class privilege, laundering recklessness into personality.

Coming from Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, a man paid to weaponize commentary, the quote carries the rhythm of pro wrestling’s moral theater: heroes and villains, cheaters and victims, all narrated in real time. Heenan understood how reputations are manufactured, how the crowd is coached to see a heel as “despicable” or a star as “misunderstood.” Here, he’s pointing at the bigger kayfabe - the one outside the ring - where money plays promoter and publicist.

The subtext is nastier than the laugh suggests. Poverty doesn’t just limit options; it limits interpretation. A poor person’s mistake is read as proof of inherent instability, irresponsibility, even criminality. A rich person’s mistake becomes “quirky,” a sign of creative freedom or charming disregard for rules. That’s not just bias; it’s social triage. Institutions - courts, media, employers - often follow the same script, translating risk into glamour when it comes with a trust fund.

Heenan’s brilliance is the economy: two sentences, one brutal insight. Class doesn’t merely buy comfort. It buys narratives.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Heenan, Bobby. (2026, January 17). If you're poor and you do something stupid, you're nuts. If you're rich and do something stupid, you're eccentric. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-youre-poor-and-you-do-something-stupid-youre-73683/

Chicago Style
Heenan, Bobby. "If you're poor and you do something stupid, you're nuts. If you're rich and do something stupid, you're eccentric." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-youre-poor-and-you-do-something-stupid-youre-73683/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If you're poor and you do something stupid, you're nuts. If you're rich and do something stupid, you're eccentric." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-youre-poor-and-you-do-something-stupid-youre-73683/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Bobby Heenan (November 1, 1944 - September 17, 2017) was a Entertainer from USA.

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