Hugh Hefner Quotes

Historically the Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, and they promptly turned around and started persecuting the people they didn't agree with - the scarlet letter A, and the stocks and the dunking board came from that. That puritanism is still there.

I dreamed impossible dreams. And the dreams turned out beyond anything I could possibly imagine. You know, from my point of view, I'm the luckiest cat on the planet.

I would like to think that I will be remembered as someone who had some positive impact on the sociosexual values of his time. And I think I'm secure and happy in that.

The difference between Marilyn Monroe and the early Pamela Anderson is not that great.

I don't have dinner parties - I eat my dinner in bed.

I felt quite frankly having been raised during the depression and looking back at the roaring twenties, the jazz age, which was a very magic timer in my mind because it was something that I had missed.

I remain very much connected to my childhood... I have never been too jaded or too sophisticated.

I’ve never thought of Playboy, quite frankly, as a sex magazine. I always thought of it as a lifestyle magazine in which sex was one important ingredient.

After world war all we got was a lot of conformity, and conservatism and when I was in college at the university of Illinois the skirt lengths dropped instead of going up as they had during the roaring twenties and I knew that was a very bad sign, and it is symbolic and reflective of a very repressive time, and some of that was laid the feet of the cold war.

It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people.

I do think the reality is, there is a general recognition of what I've accomplished.

I was raised in a typical Puritan Midwestern Methodist home and there was a lot of hurt and hypocrisy in those times. And I think that whatever part Playboy played and that I managed to play in terms of the sexual revolution came out of what I saw in the negative part of that life and tried to change things in some positive way so that people could choose alternate personal ways of living their lives.

I had a stroke in 1985... I called it a "stroke of luck." I said, "Life is like a train trip. You're looking out the window and everything is whipping past and you're not really seeing anything, and you need to get off the train and walk around a bit."

I think age, if you are healthy, I think age is largely a number. My mother lived to be 101. So I'm planning on another quarter century.

Television, cable, the Internet, that's knocked the boundaries down.

I think that retirement is the first step towards the grave.

The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.

In my own words, I played some significant part in changing the social-sexual values of our time. I had a lot of fun in the process.

Playboy was founded on the notion that nice girls like sex too.

I think that the major message of my life and what I hope to be remembered for is someone who managed to change the social sexual values of his time absolutely.

Smoking helped put me in touch with the realm of the senses.

Playboy exploits sex the way Sports Illustrated exploits sports.

Someone once asked, 'What's your best pickup line?' I said, 'My best pickup line is, 'Hi, my name is Hugh Hefner.''

Power has not corrupted me. I have not become jaded. I wake up every day well aware of my good fortune, loving the work I do, loving my life, realizing that life is a crapshoot and I'm on a roll second to none.

Follow your own particular dreams. We are handed a life by peers, parents and society, you can do that or follow your own dreams. Life is short, be a dreamer but be a practical person.

I think our society is fragmented. Messages regarding human sexuality have always been mixed in America. We are a schizophrenic nation. We were founded initially by Puritans, who escaped repression only to establish their own. Then the founding fathers gave us the Constitution to separate church and state. But the one thing that got left out of all those laws was human sexuality.

Over the course of my life I've had more than my fair share of romantic relationships with wonderful women, many moved on to live happy, healthy, and productive lives, and I'm pleased to say remain dear friends today. Sadly, there are a few who have chosen to rewrite history in an attempt to stay in the spotlight. I guess, as the old saying goes: You can't win 'em all!

In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined a sweeter life.

Life and values do run in cycles.

My parents are wonderful people and they instilled in me an idealism for which I'm grateful.

My life is an open book. With illustrations.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a, in a very romantic time in terms of music, and the music itself simple reflected the much more romantic time.

There's always been a little bit of the crusader in me, and you need dragons to slay, without the conflict and the controversy I think that what I managed to do less, and I take a great deal of pride in the accomplishment.

I have no plans to retire. It's the perfect combination of work and play that keeps you young. If I quit work it would be the beginning of the end for me.

You really don't create an authoritarian society unless you control the personal choices including the sexual choices of the people.

Because of the nature of my life, it's difficult for people to recognize that a person can live a full life, and maybe an unorthodox life, and still be on the side of the angels.

They must be doing something right up there in Canada.