1. I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.

- Marilyn Monroe

2. Always remember to smile and look up at what you got in life.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

4. I was very, very drawn to her. To me, she was like a golden child. She radiated light and vulnerability. She used to gravitate to me at parties because she knew I was not very secure either. She was fragile. I was very touched by her.

- Marilyn Monroe

5. 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.

- Marilyn Monroe

6. Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do.

- Marilyn Monroe

7. In spite of everything life is not without hope.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

9. It takes a smart brunette to play a dumb blonde.

- Marilyn Monroe

10. How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.

- Marilyn Monroe

11. 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

12. I don’t mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual. Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it’s based on femininity.

- Marilyn Monroe

13. This life is what you make it. No matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you’re going to mess it up.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

15. I read poetry to save time.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

17. I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.

- Marilyn Monroe

18. All a girl really wants is for one guy to prove to her that they are not all the same.

- Marilyn Monroe

19. I’m trying to find the nailhead, not just strike the blow.

- Marilyn Monroe

20. Most men judge your importance in their lives by how much you can hurt them.

- Marilyn Monroe

21. I want to grow old without facelifts… I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I’ve made. Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.

- Marilyn Monroe

22. It’s far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone — so far.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

24. The ‘public’ scares me, but people I trust.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

26. I love a natural look in pictures. I like people with a feeling one way or another — it shows an inner life. I like to see that there’s something going on inside them.

- Marilyn Monroe

27. 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.

- Marilyn Monroe

28. If you’re gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

30. Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.

- Marilyn Monroe

31. First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.

- Marilyn Monroe

32. Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, Fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle.

- Marilyn Monroe

33. 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.

- Marilyn Monroe

34. I think that when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated.

- Marilyn Monroe

35. No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they’re pretty, even if they aren’t.

- Marilyn Monroe

36. Men are always ready to respect anything that bores them.

- Marilyn Monroe

37. 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

38. This is a free and democratic country and no one has a monopoly on anything.

- Marilyn Monroe

39. Anything’s possible, almost.

- Marilyn Monroe

40. I always felt insecure and in the way, but most of all I felt scared. I guess I wanted love more than anything else in the world.

- Marilyn Monroe

41. I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

- Marilyn Monroe

42. She was trying to prove she was a serious actress and not just a movie star playing bimbo parts said Murray, who earned an Oscar nomination as Beau. “She was trying to prove she was an actress of substance, and in my opinion she certainly did.

- Marilyn Monroe

43. Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn’t that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.

- Marilyn Monroe

44. 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.

- Marilyn Monroe

45. 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

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

- Marilyn Monroe

47. Everybody is always tugging at you. They’d all like a sort of chunk out of you. I don’t think they realize it, but it’s like ‘grrr do this, grr do that…’But you do want to stay intact and on two feet.

- Marilyn Monroe

48. When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I’m already better than them.

- Marilyn Monroe

49. The most unsatisfactory men are those who pride themselves on their virility and regard sex as if it were some form of athletics at which you can win cups. It is a 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 just by touching your head or smiling into your eyes or by just staring into space.

- Marilyn Monroe

50. I don’t forgive people because I’m weak, I forgive them because I am strong enough to know people make mistakes.

- Marilyn Monroe

51. I think that sexuality is only attractive when it’s natural and spontaneous.

- Marilyn Monroe

52. I don’t consider myself an intellectual. And this is not one of my aims. But I admire intellectual people.

- Marilyn Monroe

53. For those who are poor in happiness, each time is a first time; happiness never becomes a habit.

- Marilyn Monroe

54. Ever notice how ‘What the hell’ is always the right answer?

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

56. 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

57. Dogs never bite me. Just humans.

- Marilyn Monroe

58. It’s often just enough to be with someone. I don’t need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You’re not alone.

- Marilyn Monroe

59. Boys think girls are like books, If the cover doesn’t catch their eye they won’t bother to read what’s inside.

- Marilyn Monroe

60. I never wanted to be Marilyn — it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.

- Marilyn Monroe

61. I’m a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they’ve made of me– and that I’ve made of myself– as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman’s and I can’t live up to it.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

63. 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

64. Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

66. It’s not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on.

- Marilyn Monroe

67. I am not a victim of emotional conflicts. I am human.

- Marilyn Monroe

68. I love to do the things the censors won’t pass.

- Marilyn Monroe

69. 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.

- Marilyn Monroe

70. Please quote me right!

- Marilyn Monroe

71. I never saw anybody work so hard, but it wasn’t an easy ride. She did such a good job and personally, I think she stole the whole damn show. I just think she was thrown into a nest of vipers.

- Marilyn Monroe

72. Just because you fail once doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything.

- Marilyn Monroe

73. This is supposed to be an art form, not just a manufacturing establishment. The sensitivity that helps me to act, you see, also makes me react. An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

75. A girl doesn’t need anyone that doesn’t need her.

- Marilyn Monroe

76. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.

- Marilyn Monroe

77. Who said nights were for sleep?

- Marilyn Monroe

78. 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

79. Its not too much fun to know yourself too well or think you do — everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through and past the falls.

- Marilyn Monroe

80. You might as well make yourself fly as to make yourself love.

- Marilyn Monroe

81. If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.

- Marilyn Monroe

82. I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t.

- Marilyn Monroe

83. I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

- Marilyn Monroe

84. Maybe I’ll never be able to do what I hope to, but at least I have hope.

- Marilyn Monroe

85. It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

- Marilyn Monroe

86. That’s the way you feel when you’re beaten inside. You don’t feel angry at those who’ve beaten you. You just feel ashamed.

- Marilyn Monroe

87. I’m very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.

- Marilyn Monroe

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

- Marilyn Monroe

89. A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

- Marilyn Monroe

90. She’d come out of our apartment in a shleppy old coat, looking like my maid, and all the people would push her aside to get my autograph. She loved it.

- Marilyn Monroe

91. I don’t stop when I’m tired. I only stop when I’m done.

- Marilyn Monroe