Some REAL quotes said by Marilyn Monroe (with sources)
Quotes from “My Story” by Marilyn Monroe (and Ben Hecht)
“As I grew older I knew I was different from other children because there were no kisses or promises in my life. I often felt lonely and wanted to die. I would try to cheer myself up with daydreams.“
"I paid no attention to the whistles and whoops. In fact, I didn’t hear them. I was full of a strange feeling, as if I were two people. One of them was Norma Jeane from the orphanage who belonged to nobody. The other was someone whose name I didn’t know. But I knew where she belonged. She belonged to the ocean and the sky and the whole world.”
“I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, ‘There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of becoming a movie star.’ But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.”
“In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hair-do. 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 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.”
“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 clothing I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn! To change, to improve! I didn’t want anything else. Not men, not money, not love, but the ability to act.”
“I couldn’t think of anything - except acting. I knew about acting. It was a way to live in dreams for a few minutes at a time.”
“It’s hard to do something that hurts your heart, especially when it’s a new heart and you think that one hurt may kill it.”
“To love without hope is a sad thing for the heart.”
“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. The public was the only family, the only Prince Charming and the only home I had ever dreamed of.”
“People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of a 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.”
Quotes from an interview with Life magazine’s Richard Meryman, 1962
“It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who is she 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, you know, of any kind of nature and it won’t hurt your feelings. Like it’s happening to your clothing.”
“I don’t understand why people aren’t a little more generous with each other.”
“Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I’d sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it. I loved anything that moved up there and I didn’t miss anything that happened and there was no popcorn either.”
“The time I sort of began to think I was famous, I was driving somebody to the airport, and as I came back there was this movie house and I saw my name in lights. I pulled the car up at a distance down the street; it was too much to take up close, you know, all of a sudden. And I said, “God, somebody’s made a mistake.” But there it was, in lights. And I sat there and said, “So that’s the way it looks,” and it was all very strange to me, and yet at the studio they had said, “Remember, you’re not a star.” Yet there it is up in lights.”
“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 do have feelings some days when there are scenes with a lot of responsibility toward the meaning, and I’ll wish, “Gee, if only I had been a cleaning woman.” On the way to the studio I would see somebody cleaning and I’d say, “That’s what I’d like to be. That’s my ambition in life.” But I think that all actors go through this. We not only want to be good, we have to be.”
“An actor is not a machine, no matter how much they want to say you are. Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.”
“Fame has a special burden, which I might as well state here and now. I don’t mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual. But what goes with it can be a burden. I feel that 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. I think that sexuality is only attractive when it’s natural and spontaneous. This is where a lot of them miss the boat. And then something I’d just like to spout off on. We are all born sexual creatures, thank God, but it’s a pity so many people despise and crush this natural gift. Art, real art, comes from it, everything.”
“It might be a kind of relief to be finished. You have to start all over again. But I believe you’re always as good as your potential. I now live in my work and in a few relationships with the few people I can really count on. Fame will go by, and, so long, I’ve had you fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live.”
Quotes from ‘Conversations with Marilyn’ by W.J. Weatherby
“If you feel low, you might worry that there’s nothing new to give. But that’s not true – not ever. You discover things inside yourself you never knew were there. You always go on developing.”
“I wish I could achieve a settled relationship like that. Someone always to come home to, someone always interested in what you’re doing – and helping you over the tough spots, helping each other. I’ve come to love that line, ‘until death do us part.’ It always seems to go well for a time, and then something happens. Maybe it’s me.”
“Sometimes I hate the effect I have on people. I get tired of stupid attention, of working people up. It’s not really a human thing.”
“I ask myself what I am afraid of. I know I have talent. I know I can act. Well, get on with it, Marilyn. I feel I still try to ingratiate myself with people, try to tell them what they want to hear. That’s fear, too. We should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid. So are regrets.”
Quotes that Marilyn wrote in notes, letters or journals
“I can’t really stand Human Beings sometimes - I know they all have their problems as I have mine - but I’m really too tired for it.”
“My body is my body, every part of it.”
“Everyone’s childhood plays itself out. No wonder no one knows the other, or can completely understand. How do we know the pain of another’s earlier years, let alone all that he drags with him. I think to love bravely is the best… and to accept as much as one can bear.”
“You’re not a scared, lonely little girl anymore. Remember, you can sit on top of the world…It doesn’t feel like it.”
“Starting tomorrow I will take care of myself for that’s all I really have and as I see it now have ever had.”
Quotes from Marilyn from interviews and articles for magazines
“When everything isn’t going all right, don’t brood about it! There’s sure to be something better waiting for you if you strive for it. Just be ready for your big chance. Success is up to you, and if you think it’s worth it, it will be yours!”
(Filmland magazine, 1953)
“When a girl puts on an act, pretends to be something she thinks will impress the boy, she ends up with a feeling of insecurity. Be who you really are!”
(Los Angeles Times, 1952)
“I dress for men. A woman looks at your clothes critically. A man appreciates them.”
(Life magazine, 1952)
“I don’t want to be bone thin, and I make it a point to stay the way I want to be.”
(Movieland magazine, 1952)
“I’m not afraid to be afraid anymore.”
(Look Magazine, 1961)
“I have a little temper, and I really lose it when people write untruths about me.”
(Motion Picture magazine, 1954)
“I want to find myself, way deep inside. And enjoy being myself. It isn’t easy. Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.”
(Coronet magazine, 1952)
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