Top 66 Monroe Quotes

I’m not reinventing the wheel here. I’m not Chuck Berry or Bill Monroe. Guys like that are from outer space.

When I walk into a video arcade filled with 16- or 17-year-old boys, I may as well be Marilyn Monroe.

I’d like to be Marilyn Monroe for a day.

I always loved watching old movies and I loved Marilyn Monroe and all those blondes; that hyper feminine 1950s glamour and the exaggeration of it. Then Jessica Rabbit came along and it was an exaggeration of that look and so I wanted to be even more exaggerated than that.

It was my first time in Kansas City. In about two or three days I had a gig at a place called The Monroe Inn.

Marilyn Monroe and Vivienne Leigh are real icons of mine. In terms of visual culture, they are both so iconic. There weren’t any paparazzi shots of them falling out of taxis, so they will always look so incredible.

I grew up on Bette Davis movies, and Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe.

I wouldn’t say no to becoming a Bond girl. Making it in Hollywood has been my dream ever since I was little, watching Marilyn Monroe movies. To star in a Bond movie would be bliss on a stick.

You know, I don’t think anyone ever knew anyone like Marilyn, really. I’ve never known another girl like Marilyn Monroe.

I always loved the style of Jean Seberg, Jane Birkin and Marilyn Monroe.

Directing Marilyn Monroe was like directing Lassie. You needed fourteen takes to get each one of them right.

I have fame on the level of a Marilyn Monroe or an Elvis Presley, but part of the reason I didn’t go the way they did was because of my beliefs. People make judgments about Scientology, but often they don’t know what they’re talking about.

I think it’s legitimate to do satire. If you’re going to write a book of satire on Marilyn Monroe or Madonna, you’re not going to get their permission, because you’re going to make fun of them!

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we worship celebrity and how we have Elvis and Marilyn Monroe and Jesus all on the same playing field.

My father died when I was 11. He was a vaudeville comedian. He worked in one movie, ‘Ladies of the Chorus,’ as Marilyn Monroe’s father.

One night some short weeks ago, for the first time in her not always happy life, Marilyn Monroe’s soul sat down alone to a quiet supper from which it did not rise.

When you’re playing Marilyn Monroe, you have a responsibility to look and sound like her that you don’t when you’re playing people who weren’t ever in the public eye.

Hollywood didn’t kill Marilyn Monroe, it’s the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.

Nobody in my school knew who Bill Monroe was, or Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and barely Johnny Cash. Nobody spoke that language. I proceeded to get myself kicked out.

Red lipstick has always been a classic. You have seen the red lip on people from Marilyn Monroe to Marilyn Manson. The right shade of red can turn a boring look into a bold, eye-catching statement.

I collect art. I just recently bought two gorgeous photographs of Marilyn Monroe by international photographer Eve Arnold and I know it sounds horrible but when she dies all her pictures are going to be worth triple. But I won’t tell you how much I got them for – let’s just say it was a lot.

I just feel a connection with Marilyn Monroe. I just love her. I just completely feel what she went through.

I was more interested in the older generation as they seemed to be the last remaining remnants of the British Raj – people who remembered the railway cantonments, the Marilyn Monroe look-a-like contest, the Central Provinces,’ and so on, a world long gone.

I basically read every book ever written about Marilyn Monroe.

I have always wanted to work with Steven R. Monroe, and when I read his script, I was blown away! I think ‘Complacent’ hits a nerve that people try so desperately to avoid, which is what I love about Steven’s work.

I’ve always had a thing for old movies, old Hollywood. I’ve always just loved watching Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. In all of those old movies from the ’40s and ’50s, women put themselves together so well, with a little bit of drama and elegance. That was fascinating to me growing up.

If you want to look at the Monroe Doctrine and what happened when we wrote that, we stated what the business would be for America’s power, especially in this hemisphere. We have always been the colonizer of this hemisphere, wherever we’ve been.

I taped the autopsy photos from Marilyn Monroe’s death to my lunch box in fifth grade, and I would write stories in which someone inevitably died.

A rap dude has his rap persona, his hyper version of himself. Do you know Method Man’s real name? Or Elton John, Marylin Monroe? You make up this character. That’s kind of what we have done with Die Antwoord, playing with characters.

What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can’t I just be an ordinary woman?

I didn’t think Marilyn Monroe was beautiful. It used to worry me. I thought maybe I’m not put together like the other chaps.

I wrote a novel called ‘Blonde,’ which is about Norma Jean Baker, who becomes Marilyn Monroe, which I called a fictitious biography. That uses the material as if it were myth – that Marilyn Monroe is like this mythical figure in our culture.

Look at Jessica Simpson. She’s famous for being dumb. I guess it started with Marylyn Monroe, and she actually wasn’t that dumb, but that’s how she was perceived – and that’s what got popular.

Madonna is a creation, so perhaps we should give her and the factory that created her a little credit, but I think that she should quietly disappear now. Poor Madge seems unable to decide whether she wants to look like Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich.

Bill Monroe is not singing about life in America. He’s singing about life in Kentucky and Tennessee. And yet it’s had this tremendous impact, not just in America but in the world. Why is Bill Monroe’s hyper-regional music so universal? We can be so different and yet still share a tremendous amount.

You can’t pretend to be a Sharon Stone or a Marilyn Monroe. You really can’t fake that.

Growing up, I had my mom to look up to; J. Lo and Marilyn Monroe were notable curvy women. But I didn’t have anyone with cellulite or back fat telling me they didn’t care.

My mom was a Democrat and I was scared to death that she was gonna blow it. First I was going to hell with Monroe, and now to Republican hell with Nixon.

I was in Florida with Burt Stern, the photographer who shot Marilyn Monroe on the beach with a sweater, and we smoked a joint. The bathing suit kept coming off in the water, and I just ripped it off. I was very comfortable being naked.

The working men, I’ll go by and they’ll whistle. At first they whistle because they think, ‘Oh, it’s a girl. She’s got blond hair and she’s not out of shape,’ and then they say, ‘Gosh, it’s Marilyn Monroe!’

I think it will be helpful to people because I know the expectations that are put on you as a sex symbol, and how Marilyn Monroe suffered and so on, and I was able to get free of that.

I would have loved to have met Marilyn Monroe and have dinner with her.

I had some good teachers. One of the greatest teachers I’ve had is bluegrass music: going back and listening to Bill Monroe’s music, the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs. When I was with Ralph Stanley I learned a lot from him.

I loved the movies and I wanted to be like Marilyn Monroe. I thought she was so glamorous and everyone seemed to love her. I wanted to be like that and I told everyone I would be the next Marilyn Monroe.

You can take Elvis. You can take Marilyn Monroe. Success and fame will not be the answer if something inside of you is bothering you, if things in your mind aren’t going right.

So you’re quite right that when… as the Cold War grew and expanded out of Europe, we ourselves had to take refuge behind the shield of the Monroe Doctrine.

I looked at all the superstars. What is their different thing? Their hair. Beatles, Elvis, James Dean, James Brown, Marilyn Monroe. I wanted to be a star. I said, ‘I have to fix my hair.’

The word ‘success’ – who’s defining it? It’s about whether or not it makes me feel good. Four billion people don’t have to see or hear it. If I’ve enjoyed the process of creation and I’m at peace, then what happens next is just entertainment. If mass appeal were actually something, Marilyn Monroe wouldn’t be dead.

Some people will never take Madonna seriously – just as many never took Marilyn Monroe seriously. Novelty images – especially that of a sex symbol – are hard to erase.

Part of me has always wanted to be like Marilyn Monroe or any Fifties Hollywood starlet. On screen, they seemed so sexy and simple and looked after. In real life, I’m none of those things. But I’d rather be fierce and complicated.

Marilyn Monroe Productions was the first female-owned production company in Hollywood. She paved the way for women in Hollywood, and every single woman owes something to her for that, whether they agree with her image or not.

I was asked once if I ever got tired of playing bimbos, and I answered that I’ve never played a bimbo. I’ve always played smart, manipulative women. Marilyn Monroe and Judy Holliday, who were not stupid, could play stupid really well, but I don’t do it well.