Famous Marilyn Monroe Quotes

"I'm going to be a great movie star some day."

"I am not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful."

"Only the public can make a star. It's the studios who try to make a system out of it."

"I used to think as I looked at the Hollywood night, 'there must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest."

"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."

"Everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like a sort of chunk out of you. I don' think they realize it, but it's like 'grrr do this, grr do that...' But you do want to stay intact--intact and on two feet."

"It stirs up envy, fame does. People...feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you--and it won't hurt your feelings--like it's happening to your clothing."

"Fame is fickle and I know it. It has its compensations, but it also has its drawbacks and I've experienced them both."

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

"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."

"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."

"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 cents."

"It's all make believe, isn't it?"

"I don't want to be rich. I just want to be loved."

"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you learn to appreciate them when they're right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself...and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."

"I am just a small girl in a big world trying to
find someone to love."

"I don't mind living in a man's world, as long as I can be a woman in it."

"A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left."

"I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

"I learned to walk as a baby and I haven't had a lesson since."

"Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature."

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

"I love to do the things the censors won't pass."

"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."

"I don't want to play sex roles any more. I'm tired of being known as the girl with the shape."

"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."

"It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on."

"I'm very definitely a woman and I enjoy it."

"Please don't make me a joke."

"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."

"I restore myself when I'm alone."

"If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere."

"I'm trying to find myself as a person, sometimes that's not easy to do. Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do. The best way for me to find myself as a person is to prove to myself that I am an actress."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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!"

"A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night."

"No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they are pretty, even if they aren't."

"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."

"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."