Marilyn Monroe Quotes

99 Sourced Quotes

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

Marilyn Monroe
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

Marilyn Monroe
Unfortunately, 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.

Marilyn Monroe
Men who think that a woman's past love affairs lessen her love for them are usually stupid and weak.

Marilyn Monroe
Doing a scene is like opening a bottle. If it doesn't open one way, try another — perhaps even give it up for another bottle?

Marilyn Monroe
I'm trying to find myself as a person. Sometime that's not easy to do. Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do.

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

Marilyn Monroe
When you're young and healthy you can plan on Monday to commit suicide, and by Wednesday you're laughing again.

Marilyn Monroe
The real lover is the man who can thrill you just by touching your head or smiling into your eyes - or just by staring into space.

Marilyn Monroe
Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a 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.

Marilyn Monroe
It's not true I had nothing on. I had the radio on.
On reports of her nude photographs for a calendar

Marilyn Monroe
I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

Marilyn Monroe
I don't know if high society is different in other cities, but in Hollywood, important people can't stand to be invited someplace that isn't full of other important people. They don't mind a few unfamous people being present because they make good listeners.

Marilyn Monroe
An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?

Marilyn Monroe
Sometimes it makes you a little sad because you'd like to meet somebody kind of on face value. It's nice to be included in people's fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

Marilyn Monroe
I don't understand why people aren't a little more generous with each other.

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
Squeezing yourself to ooze out the last ounce of sex allure is terribly hard. I'd like to do roles like Julie in Bury the Dead, Gretchen in Faust and Teresa in Cradle Song.

Marilyn Monroe
If a star or studio chief or any other great movie personages find themselves sitting among a lot of nobodies, they get frightened - as if somebody was trying to demote them.

Marilyn Monroe
When you're famous you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way. It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe? They feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, of any kind of nature — and it won't hurt your feelings — like it's happening to your clothes not you.

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

Marilyn Monroe
Acting became important. It became an art that belonged to the actor, not to the director or producer, or the man whose money had bought the studio. It was an art that transformed you into somebody else, that increased your life and mind. I had always loved acting and tried hard to learn it. But with Michael Chekhov, acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion.

Marilyn Monroe
You might as well make yourself fly as to make yourself love.

Marilyn Monroe
I have always had a talent for irritating women since I was fourteen.

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