Context

This line is spoken by Tira (played by Mae West) in the film I'm No Angel, directed by Wesley Ruggles (1933).

Mae West—the actress, not the life vest—was a brassy dame who pushed the limits. In I'm No Angel, Mae West was no angel; she was Tira, a dancer/lion-tamer with a flair for show(wo)manship and more than a few nuggets of wisdom to dispense. Tira's way of saying "quality, not quantity" is the much more risqué (for the time) "Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men."

Hear how that sounded by clicking here.

Where you've heard it

You hear this when you're on the dating website Plenty of Fish and getting tired of reeling in stinker after stinker every week.

Additional Notable References:

• A 1998 survey named this quote the third most famous movie quote of all time. Put that in your box of chocolates and eat it, Forrest Gump.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

By saying this instead of "quality over quantity," you are being both clever and un-cliché, keeping this on the low end of the pretentious spectrum.