Marilyn Monroe Quotes

6/1/1926-8/5/1962:
Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson), was a Golden Globe Award-winning American actress, singer, model, pop icon and sex symbol. She was known for her comedic skills and screen presence, going on to become one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s and early 1960s. At the later stages of her career, she worked towards serious roles with some success. However, she faced disappointments in her career and personal life during her later years. Her death has been subject to speculation and conspiracy theories.

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

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

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.

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

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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.

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I restore myself when I'm alone.

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?

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

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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.

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I'm trying to find myself as a person, sometimes that's not easy to do.

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

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.

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

Of the nude pictures: Sure I posed. I needed the money.

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.

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

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

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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.

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.

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

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Please don't make me a joke.

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.

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