The quickest way to a man's heart is through his chest.

Roseanne Barr’s line is a darkly comic twist on the familiar proverb “the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” By swapping “stomach” for “chest,” the joke pivots from romance and domesticity to blunt physicality—suggesting that the most direct route to a man’s “heart” is literal penetration of the torso. The humor depends on shock and inversion, characteristic of Barr’s abrasive, anti-sentimental comedic persona. It also satirizes clichés about winning male affection, replacing a nurturing stereotype with an aggressively literal, violent image to expose how formulaic the original saying is.