Quotes

If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.
-Marilyn Monroe

I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful.
-Marilyn Monroe

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer.
-Marilyn Monroe

A career is wonderful thing, but you can't snuggle up to it on a cold night.
-Marilyn Monroe

Acting isn't something you do. Instead of doing it, it occurs. If you're going to start with logic, you might as well give up. You can have conscious preparation, but you have unconscious results.
-Marilyn Monroe

I'm for the individual as opposed to the corporation. The way it is the individual is the underdog, and with all the things a corporation has going for them the individual comes out banged on her head. The artist is nothing. It's really tragic.
-Marilyn Monroe

It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.
-Marilyn Monroe

If I play a stupid girl and ask a stupid question I've got to follow it through. What am I supposed to do - look intelligent?
-Marilyn Monroe

Everyone's just laughing at me. I hate it. Big breasts, big ass, big deal, Can't I be anything else ? Gee, how long can you be sexy?
-Marilyn Monroe

Men who think that a woman's past love affairs lessen her love for them are usually stupid and weak. A woman can bring a new love to each man she loves, providing there are not too many.
-Marilyn Monroe

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

I'm very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.
-Marilyn Monroe

I restore myself when I'm alone.
-Marilyn Monroe

I love to do the things the censors won't pass.
-Marilyn Monroe

It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone.
-Marilyn Monroe

A career is born in public - talent in privacy.
-Marilyn Monroe

Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.
-Marilyn Monroe

The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.
-Marilyn Monroe

People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person. They didn't see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one.
-Marilyn Monroe

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.
-Marilyn Monroe

Of the nude pictures: Sure I posed. I needed the money.
-Marilyn Monroe

I don't know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.
-Marilyn Monroe

I am trying to prove to myself that I am a person. Then may be I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.
-Marilyn Monroe

What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can't I just be an ordinary woman? A woman who can have a family ... I'd settle for just one baby. My own baby.
-Marilyn Monroe

It's better for the whole world to know you, even as a sex star, than never to be known at all.
-Marilyn Monroe

My illusions didn't have anything to do with being a fine actress. I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn, to change, to improve!
-Marilyn Monroe

1956 interview about her childhood: Looking back, I guess I used to play-act all the time. For one thing, it meant I could live in a more interesting world than the one around me.
-Marilyn Monroe

Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.
-Marilyn Monroe

To a reporter: Please don't make me a joke.
-Marilyn Monroe

Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.
-Marilyn Monroe

I've been on a calendar, but never on time.
-Marilyn Monroe

It's all make believe, isn't it?
-Marilyn Monroe

I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.
-Marilyn Monroe

People respect you because they feel you've survived hard times and endured, and although you've become famous, you haven't become phony.
-Marilyn Monroe

I have too many fantasies to be a housewife.... I guess I am a fantasy.
-Marilyn Monroe

My work is the only ground I've ever had to stand on. I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation - but I'm working on the foundation.
-Marilyn Monroe

Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work.
-Marilyn Monroe

An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.
-Marilyn Monroe

Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.
-Marilyn Monroe

That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something, I'd rather have it sex than some other things we've got symbols of.
-Marilyn Monroe

It's woman's spirit and mood a man has to stimulate in order to make sex interesting. The real lover is the man who can thrill you by touching your head or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.
-Marilyn Monroe

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.
-Marilyn Monroe