Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.

The line turns a solemn commonplace—“everyone must believe in something”—into a punchline by substituting religious or philosophical conviction with the immediate, bodily “faith” of ordering another drink. It exemplifies W. C. Fields’s comic persona: a genial misanthrope and unapologetic tippler who punctures moral earnestness with cynicism and appetite. The humor depends on anticlimax and self-mockery, suggesting that lofty ideals often mask ordinary desires, and that “belief” can be as trivial (or as sustaining) as a habitual comfort. As a widely circulated quip, it also reflects how Fields’s screen image and public legend fused into a shorthand for irreverent, alcohol-tinged skepticism.

1) "Everybody has to believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink."
2) "Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink."