Top 461 Quotes & Sayings by Marilyn Monroe

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actress Marilyn Monroe.

Last updated on September 9, 2024.

Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, and model. Famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s and was emblematic of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million by the time of her death in 1962. Long after her death, Monroe remains a major icon of pop culture. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her sixth on their list of the greatest female screen legends from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

American - Actress | June 1, 1926 - August 5, 1962

Source: Wikipedia

A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.

Marilyn Monroe

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.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.

Marilyn Monroe

My dinners at home are startlingly simple. Every night, I stop at the market near my hotel and pick up a steak, lamb chops or some liver, which I broil in the electric oven in my room. I usually eat four or five raw carrots with my meat, and that is all. I must be part rabbit; I never get bored with raw carrots.

Marilyn Monroe

It's all make believe, isn't it?

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Sometimes I've been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

The truth is, I've never fooled anyone. I've let men sometimes fool themselves.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy.

Marilyn Monroe

Fear is stupid. So are regrets.

Marilyn Monroe

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

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.

Marilyn Monroe

I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I'm out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.

Marilyn Monroe

A smart girl leaves before she is left.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

A career is born in public - talent in privacy.

Marilyn Monroe

If there is only one thing in my life that I am proud of, it's that I've never been a kept woman.

Marilyn Monroe

It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

Dogs never bite me - just humans.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

The nicest thing for me is sleep, then at least I can dream.

Marilyn Monroe

What I really want to say: That what the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

I am alone; I am always alone no matter what.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

I like to feel blonde all over.

Marilyn Monroe

I defy gravity.

Marilyn Monroe

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

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 experience, but that's not where I live.

Marilyn Monroe

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

Marilyn Monroe

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

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

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

Marilyn Monroe

I restore myself when I'm alone.

Marilyn Monroe

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