Marilyn Monroe Quotes
Actress
The real lover is the man who can thrill you just by touching your head or smiling into your eyes - or just by staring into space.
Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.
We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.
I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.
If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.
A strong man doesn't have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn't match his strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the world.
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone - so far.
If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.
I restore myself when I'm alone.
I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.
I've never dropped anyone I believed in.
Designers want me to dress like Spring, in billowing things. I don't feel like Spring. I feel like a warm red Autumn.
I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.
Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.
Dogs never bite me - just humans.
One of the best things that ever happened to me is that I'm a woman. That is the way all females should feel.
Fear is stupid. So are regrets.
I am alone; I am always alone no matter what.
Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.
I don't know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.
It's all make believe, isn't it?
I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.
I remember when I was in high school I didn't have a new dress for each special occasion. The girls would bring the fact to my attention, not always too delicately. The boys, however, never bothered with the subject. They were my friends, not because of the size of my wardrobe but because they liked me.
It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.
You know, most people really don't know me.
Nothing's ever easy as long as you go on living.
Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.
I don't digest things with my mind.
Beauty and femininity are ageless and can't be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won't like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it's based on femininity.
It's often just enough to be with someone. I don't need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You're not alone.
A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.
The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.
A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.
I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one.
Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experience, but that's not where I live.
I've been on a calendar, but I've never been on time.
A woman can't be alone. She needs a man. A man and a woman support and strengthen each other. She just can't do it by herself.
What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course.
I am not a victim of emotional conflicts. I am human.
Men are so willing to respect anything that bores them.
I like to feel blonde all over.
No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they're pretty, even if they aren't.
Sometimes I've been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.
I think that sexuality is only attractive when it's natural and spontaneous.
I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that's not easy.
I'm very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.
I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy.
I wish I knew why I am so anguished.
I never wanted to be Marilyn - it just happened. Marilyn's like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.
The truth is, I've never fooled anyone. I've let men sometimes fool themselves.
I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, 'There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of being a movie star.' But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest.
Dreaming about being an actress, is more exciting then being one.
If I'm a star, then the people made me a star.
I am invariably late for appointments - sometimes as much as two hours. I've tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing.
Fame doesn't fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.
We should all start to live before we get too old.
I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
The working men, I'll go by and they'll whistle. At first they whistle because they think, 'Oh, it's a girl. She's got blond hair and she's not out of shape,' and then they say, 'Gosh, it's Marilyn Monroe!'
We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.
A career is born in public - talent in privacy.
A smart girl leaves before she is left.
I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!
Sometimes, wearing a scarf and a polo coat and no makeup and with a certain attitude of walking, I go shopping or just look at people living. But then, you know, there will be a few teenagers who are kind of sharp, and they'll say, 'Hey, just a minute. You know who I think that is?' And they'll start tailing me. And I don't mind.
I'm one of the world's most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.
I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.
Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him.
Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.
Depending upon my activities, I sleep between five and ten hours every night. I sleep in an extra-wide single bed, and I use only one heavy down comforter over me, summer or winter. I have never been able to wear pajamas or creepy nightgowns; they disturb my sleep.
I always have a full-length mirror next to the camera when I'm doing publicity stills. That way, I know how I look.
I defy gravity.
For a long time I was scared I'd find out I was like my mother.
What's the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?
Fame is like caviar, you know - it's good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal.
I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president's birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing 'Happy Birthday,' like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!'
Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer. You're gay, you're sick, you're nervous or whatever.
A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I'm afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.
The trouble with censors is that they worry if a girl has cleavage. They ought to worry if she hasn't any.
Friends accept you the way you are.
There was my name up in lights. I said, 'God, somebody's made a mistake.' But there it was, in lights. And I sat there and said, 'Remember, you're not a star.' Yet there it was up in lights.
Respect is one of life's greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don't have that?
I have always had a talent for irritating women since I was fourteen.
Black men don't like to be called 'boys,' but women accept being called 'girls.'
I have never cared especially for outdoor sports and have no desire to excel at tennis, swimming, or golf. I'll leave those things to the men.
Fame is fickle, and I know it. It has its compensations but it also has its drawbacks, and I've experienced them both.
I don't want everybody to see exactly where I live, what my sofa or my fireplace looks like.
I have been told my eating habits are absolutely bizarre. But I don't think so.
First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.
Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection.
With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else's ideas about you, but what's important is how you feel about yourself - for survival and living day to day with what comes up.
To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I'm working on the foundation.
Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, 'One tear, right now,' that one tear would pop out.
Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.
Arthur Miller wouldn't have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde.
The nicest thing for me is sleep, then at least I can dream.
There are many times when a woman will ask another girl friend how she likes her new hat. She will reply, 'Fine,' but slap her hand to her forehead the minute the girl leaves to yipe, 'What a horror!'
My dinners at home are startlingly simple. Every night, I stop at the market near my hotel and pick up a steak, lamb chops or some liver, which I broil in the electric oven in my room. I usually eat four or five raw carrots with my meat, and that is all. I must be part rabbit; I never get bored with raw carrots.
I've often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.
I learned to walk as a baby, and I haven't had a lesson since.
There isn't anybody that looks like me without clothes on.