I am one of those people who just can't help getting a kick out of life — even when it's a kick in the teeth.

The line frames Adler’s persona as defiantly resilient: she takes pleasure in living not because life is gentle, but because she refuses to be defeated by it. The pun on “kick” turns hardship (“a kick in the teeth”) into the very material of her vitality, suggesting a temperament that converts adversity into dark humor and momentum. Read against Adler’s public image as a notorious New York madam who survived scandal, prosecution, and social condemnation, the quote functions as self-mythology—an insistence on agency and appetite in a world that repeatedly punishes her. Its appeal lies in its blunt, streetwise optimism: joy is not innocence, but endurance.