Daily Inspiration Quote by Mae West

A four-word brag that doubles as a wink. "I've been things and seen places" is Mae West compressing an entire persona into a line that sounds almost innocent until you register the deliberate vagueness. "Things" and "places" are blank checks for the listener's imagination; she never names the sins, the lovers, the nightlife, the backstage bargains. That omission is the point. West understood that in an era of moral gatekeeping and censorship, the most potent eroticism lived in the unsaid, where the audience does the dirty work for free.

The grammar is doing sly labor, too. Not "done things", which would suggest actions; "been things" suggests identities tried on and discarded. It's an actress's flex - shapeshifting as survival and as pleasure. The second half, "seen places", reads like the respectable version of the same idea: travel, experience, worldliness. Together they form a neat alibi: if you accuse her of scandal, she can smile and say she only meant life experience. If you want scandal, she lets you have it.

Context matters: West built her fame in the crosscurrents of vaudeville, Broadway, and early Hollywood, constantly sparring with censors who tried to domesticate female desire. This line keeps her untamable while staying technically clean. It's a résumé and a dare, a reminder that expertise isn't always taught in classrooms - sometimes it's acquired in rooms you're not supposed to talk about.