Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Marlene Dietrich

There's something about an American soldier you can't explain. They're so grateful for anything, even a film actress coming to see them.

The weak are more likely to make the strong weak than the strong are likely to make the weak strong.

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.

Glamour is what I sell, it's my stock in trade.

Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.

Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact.

I am not a myth.

Without tenderness, a man is uninteresting.

When you're dead, you're dead. That's it.

The Germans and I no longer speak the same language.

If there is a supreme being, he's crazy.

In America, sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it's a fact.

I'm worth more dead than alive. Don't cry for me after I'm gone; cry for me now.

I never enjoyed working in a film.

It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.

A man would prefer to come home to an unmade bed and a happy woman than to a neatly made bed and an angry woman.

I am at heart a gentleman.

To be completely woman you need a master, and in him a compass for your life. You need a man you can look up to and respect. If you dethrone him it's no wonder that you are discontented, and discontented women are not loved for long.

Most women set out to try to change a man, and when they have changed him they do not like him.

How do you know love is gone? If you said that you would be there at seven and you get there by nine, and he or she has not called the police yet - it's gone.

I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men.

I had no desire to be an film actress, to always play somebody else, to be always beautiful with somebody constantly straightening out your every eyelash. It was always a big bother to me.

They want you to bring out your intestines.

Latins are tenderly enthusiastic. In Brazil they throw flowers at you. In Argentina they throw themselves.

America took me into her bosom when there was no longer a country worthy of the name, but in my heart I am German - German in my soul.

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

Courage and grace are a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is in the bullring.

Darling, the legs aren't so beautiful, I just know what to do with them.

Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.

The tears I have cried over Germany have dried. I have washed my face.

Grumbling is the death of love.

There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.

The average man is more interested in a woman who is interested in him than he is in a woman with beautiful legs.

Love affairs are the real only education in life.

Glamour is assurance. It is a kind of knowing that you are all right in every way, mentally and physically and in appearance, and that, whatever the occasion or the situation, you are equal to it.

A country without bordellos is like a house without bathrooms.

Friendship is a precious gift that can't be bought or sold. It's value is greater than mountains made of gold. If you shall ask God for a gift be thankful if he sends not diamonds pearls or riches but the love and trust of friends. It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.

What a man notices first about a woman is whether she notices him.

In language gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English?

Tenderness is greater proof of love than the most passionate of vows.

Love for the joy of loving, and not for the offerings of someone else's heart.

I do not think that we have a “right” to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.

Seeing twilight fall should be prescribed by doctors.

Champagne makes you feel like it's Sunday and better days are just around the corner.

Careful grooming may take twenty years off a woman's age, but you can't fool a flight of stairs.

Sex is much better with a woman, but then one can't live with a woman.

Duties are what make life most worth living. Lacking them, you are not necessary to anyone.

Don't follow it blindly into every dark alley. Always remember that you are not a model or a mannequin for which the fashion is created.

Writers, Composers, Painters, - also artists like directors and actors fall into the same category. They have to be handled with kid gloves, mentally and physically

There comes a time when suddenly you realize that laughter is something you remember and that you were the one laughing.

Every human being is in need of talking to somebody. In this country nobody has time. It seems that talking to a friend has gone out of style. Now you have to pay money to go to an analyst.

To lose your prejudices you must travel.

Being in the depths of sadness is just as important an experience as being exuberantly happy.

In Europe, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman - we make love with anyone we find attractive.

The British have an umbilical cord which has never been cut and through which tea flows constantly. It is curious to watch them in times of sudden horror, tragedy or disaster. The pulse stops apparently, and nothing can be done, and not one move made, until a “nice cup of tea” is quickly made. There is no question that it brings solace and does steady the mind. What a pity all countries are not.

For women, beauty is more important than the mind, because the man is easier to watch than to think.

You can't live without illusions, even if you must fight for them.

Words can bruise and break hearts, and minds as well. There are no black and blue marks, no broken bones to put in plaster casts, and therefore no prison bars for the offender.

Most people who make movies are in real life a bitter disappointment. I, on the other hand, am so much better in real life.