Marilyn Monroe Quotes

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.

My travels have always been of the same kind. No matter where I've gone or why I've gone there it ends up that I never see anything. Becoming a movie star is living on a merry-go-round. When you travel you take the merry-go-round with you. You don't see natives or new scenery. You see chiefly the same press agents, the same sort of interviewers, and the same picture layouts of yourself.

I live to succeed, not to please you or anyone else.

You can't sleep your way into being a star. It takes much, much more. But it helps a lot of actresses get their first chance that way.

It's better being completely ridiculous than unbelievably boring.

Men are climbing to the moon, but they don’t seem interested in the beating human heart.

What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course.

I do sin, but I am not the devil.

Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection.

The trouble with censors is that they worry if a girl has cleavage. They ought to worry if she hasn't any.

President Kennedy is very democratic and very penetrating.

Frankly, I've never considered my own figure so exceptional; until quite recently, I seldom gave it any thought at all. My biggest single concern used to be getting enough to eat. Now I have to worry about eating too much. I never used to bother with exercises. Now I spend at least 10 minutes each morning working out with small weights. I have evolved my own exercises, for the muscles I wish to keep firm, and I know they are right for me because I can feel them putting the proper muscles into play as I exercise.

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.

If you spend your life competing with business men, what do you have? A bank account and ulcers!

After all, all we demanded was a right to twinkle.

What's the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

Everyone's a star and deserves the right to twinkle.

I always felt I was a nobody, and the only way for me to be somebody was to be - well, somebody else. Which is probably why I wanted to act.

Do not ever go back to that from which decided to leave. As much as you did not ask, and how would you not want to own. Having conquered a mountain, begin to attack the other.

If you don't love me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best.

Suicide, is a persons privilege. I don't believe it's a sin or a crime it's your right if you do. Though it doesn't get you anywhere.

To all the girls that think you’re fat because you’re not a size zero, you’re the beautiful one, its society who’s ugly.

Too often they don't realize what they have until it's gone. ...they're too stubborn to say, 'Sorry, I was wrong' they hurt the ones closest to their hearts, and we let the most foolish things tear us apart

Why is it you always meet people when you look your worst?

Arthur Miller wouldn't have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde.

I love a natural look in pictures.

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!'

There is a need for aloneness, which I don't think most people realise for an actor. It's almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you'll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you're acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like sort of a chunk of you.

Hollywood parties not only confuse me, but they often disillusion me. The disillusion comes when I meet a movie star I’ve been admiring since childhood. I always thought that movie stars were exciting and talented people full of special personality. Meeting one of them at a party I discover usually that he (or she) is colorless and even frightened. I’ve often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.

It stirs up envy, fame does.

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.

Happiness is the most important thing in the world, without it, you live a life of depression.

It's not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do - everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.

Nothing's ever easy as long as you go on living.

They've said I want to direct pictures. I couldn't direct traffic.

I didn't pay much attention to the whistles and whoops, in fact, I didn't quite hear them. I was full of a strange feeling, as if I were two people. One of them was Norma Jeane from the orphanage who belonged to nobody; the other was someone whose name I didn't know. But I knew where she belonged; she belonged to the ocean and the sky and the whole world.

I won't be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me. Of course, that doesn't mean I want them to stop looking.

In spite of everything life is not without hope.

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 public doesn't mind people living together without being married, providing they don't overdo it.

I used to say to myself, 'What the devil have you got to be proud about, Marilyn Monroe?' And I'd answer, 'Everything, everything,' and I'd walk slowly and turn my head slowly as if I were a queen.

I've often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.

In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You're judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty.

You can read about yourself but what's important is how you feel about yourself.

Dogs never bite me. Just humans.

For life: it is rather a determination not to be overwhelmed. For work: the truth can only be recalled, never invented.

Always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie?

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right. And I guess I've always had too much fantasy to be only a housewife.