Top 105 Marilyn Monroe Quotes

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

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.

I defy gravity.

A strong man doesn’t have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn’t match his strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the world.

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.

I’ve always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, ‘Hi,’ that the people ought to get their money’s worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.

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.

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

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

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

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.

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

We should all start to live before we get too old.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.

Black men don’t like to be called ‘boys,’ but women accept being called ‘girls.’

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

A woman can bring a new love to each man she loves, providing there are not too many.

When I was a youngster I lived with different families. I nearly always felt closer to the man of the house. Maybe because I always dreamed of having a father of my own.

I learned to walk as a baby, and I haven’t had a lesson since.

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 am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.

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

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

I always have a full-length mirror next to the camera when I’m doing publicity stills. That way, I know how I look.

Fear is stupid. So are regrets.

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.

I’ve never dropped anyone I believed in.

I’ve always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, ‘Hi,’ that the people ought to get their money’s worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.

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

I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.

When I was five, I think, that’s when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn’t like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. It was like you could make your own boundaries.

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

If you spend your life competing with business men, what do you have? A bank account and ulcers!

I’ve found men are less likely to let petty things annoy them.

If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

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

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

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

All my stepchildren carried the burden of my fame. Sometimes they would read terrible things about me, and I’d worry about whether it would hurt them. I would tell them: ‘Don’t hide these things from me. I’d rather you ask me these things straight out, and I’ll answer all your questions.’

I want to be an artist, not… a celluloid aphrodisiac.

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

I restore myself when I’m alone.

I remember when I was in high school I didn’t have a new dress for each special occasion. The girls would bring the fact to my attention, not always too delicately. The boys, however, never bothered with the subject. They were my friends, not because of the size of my wardrobe but because they liked me.

Dogs never bite me – just humans.

Girls shouldn’t worry about being the equal of men in the business world.

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

Fame doesn’t fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity, and that includes all kinds of parts.

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.

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

I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, ‘There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of being a movie star.’ But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.

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.

To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I’m working on the foundation.

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

You know, most people really don’t know me.

Next to my husband, and along with Marlon Brando, I think that Yves Montand is the most attractive man I’ve ever met.

Designers want me to dress like Spring, in billowing things. I don’t feel like Spring. I feel like a warm red Autumn.

Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I’m invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who’ll play the piano after dinner, and I know you’re not really invited for yourself. You’re just an ornament.

Having a child, that’s always been my biggest fear. I want a child and I fear a child.

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

I have evolved my own exercises, for the muscles I wish to keep firm, and I know they are right for me because I can feel them putting the proper muscles into play as I exercise.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

One of the best things that ever happened to me is that I’m a woman. That is the way all females should feel.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

Depending upon my activities, I sleep between five and ten hours every night. I sleep in an extra-wide single bed, and I use only one heavy down comforter over me, summer or winter. I have never been able to wear pajamas or creepy nightgowns; they disturb my sleep.

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

I just got to feel that whoever I marry has some real regard for me.

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.

Fame is like caviar, you know – it’s good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal.

Men are so willing to respect anything that bores them.

I don’t digest things with my mind.

I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that sometimes I was fooling somebody; I don’t know who or what, maybe myself.

Confidentially, the type of male I find most enjoyable for a friend is one who has enough fire and assurance to speak up for his convictions.

A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.

There isn’t anybody that looks like me without clothes on.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

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

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