Cocaine habit-forming? Of course not. I ought to know. I’ve been using it for years.

A quintessential Tallulah Bankhead quip, the line uses deadpan irony to puncture a public-health warning by offering “personal experience” as proof—only for that proof to undermine itself. The humor hinges on the contradiction: claiming cocaine is not habit-forming while admitting long-term use. Read as a piece of celebrity self-mythmaking, it also reflects the era’s fascination with glamorous excess and the way witty one-liners could launder troubling realities into entertainment. The quote’s staying power comes from its compact structure and its satirical exposure of rationalization—how addiction (or any dependency) can be defended through confident, circular logic.