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PERSONAL
"How can I learn something about the most famous philosophers in a few hours?
I'm going to a party tonight and I want to be able to hold my own."
"I used to say to myself, 'What the devil have you got to be proud about, Marilyn Monroe?'
And I'd answer, 'Everything, everything.'"
"I've never dropped anyone I believed in."
"I restore myself when I'm alone. A career is born in public, talent in private."
"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."
"The reality is very different - it's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with
someone, so far."
"I feel as though it's all happening to someone right next to me. I'm close, I can feel
it, I can hear it, but it isn't really me."
"I have never been very good at being a member of any group - more than a group of
two, that is."
"I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even
beautiful, but because I never had belonged to anything or anyone else."
"People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of 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."
"The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves.
They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a
character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody
I wasn't. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning
them and fooling them."
"To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation.
But I'm working on the foundation."
"If I had observed all the rules, I'd never have gotten anywhere."
"My problem is that I drive myself... I'm trying to become an artist, and to be true,
and sometimes I feel I'm on the verge of craziness, I'm just trying to get the
truest part of myself out, and it's very hard. There are times when I think,
'All I have to be is true'. But sometimes it doesn't come out so easily. I always
have this secret feeling that I'm really a fake or something, a phony."
"I never intentionally mean to hurt anyone, but you can't be too nice to people you
work with, else they will trample you to death."
"Gee, I never thought I had an effect on people until I was in Korea."
"I don't consider myself an intellectual. And this is not one of my aims. But I admire
intellectual people."
"It stirs up envy, fame does. People...feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk
up to you and say anything to you -and it won't hurt your feelings- like it's happening to
your clothing."
(About her mother) "To me, she was just that red-haired woman."
(On her mother) "You sit alone. It's night outside. Automobiles roll down
Sunset Boulevard like an endless string of beetles. Their rubber tires make a purring
high-class noise. You're hungry, and you say, 'It's not good for my waistline to eat.'
There's nothing finer than a washboard belly."
"I want to be a big star more than anything. It's something precious."
"I'm not interested in money, I just want to be wonderful."
"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 yourself..."
"I was never used to being happy, so that wasn't something I ever took for granted."
"A woman can't be alone. She needs a man. A man and a woman support and strengthen
each other. She just can't do it by herself."
"A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night."
ABOUT HER LOOKS
"You would think all other women kept their bodies in vaults."
"It isn't necessary to use your voice in any special way (to sound sexy). If you think
something sexy the voice just naturally goes along."
"I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the
face I have made."
"I didn't pay much attention to the whistles and whoops, in fact, I didn't quite 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."
"A sex-symbol becomes a thing, I just hate being a thing. But if I'm going to be a
symbol of something I'd rather have it sex than some other things we've got symbols of."
"I never quite understood it - this sex symbol-I always thought symbols were those
things you clash together! That's the trouble, a sex symbol is a thing. But if I'm going
to be the symbol of something, I'd rather have it sex than some other things they've
got symbols of!"
"It's nice to be included in people's fantasies, but you also like to be accepted for
your own sake."
"I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy."
"The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up."
"I love a natural look in pictures. I like people with a feeling one way or another -
it shows an inner life. I like to see that there's something going on inside them."
"I don't mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual. But what goes with it
can be a burden. We are all born sexual creatures, thank God, but it's a pity so many
people despise and crush this natural gift."
"The trouble with censors is they worry if a girl has a cleavage. They ought to
worry if she hasn't any."
"In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You're judged by how
you look, not by what you are."
"I never quite understood it - this sex symbol- I always thought symbols were those things you clash together! That's the trouble, a sex symbol is a thing. But if I'm going to be the symbol of something, I'd rather have it sex than some other things they've got symbols of!"
"Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired,
hurt and bewildered."
"I've given pure sex appeal very little thought. If I had to think about it, I'm sure it
would frighten me."
"A photographer once told me that my two best points are between my waist and my neck."
RELATIONSHIPS
"My marriage brought me neither happiness nor pain. My husband and I hardly spoke to each
other. This wasn't because we were angry. We had nothing to say."
"I wanna guy I can look up to . . . I just gotta feel that whoever I marry has some real
regard for me, aside from all that loving stuff."
"Wouldn't it be nice to be like men, just getting notches in your belt, having affairs
with the most attractive men . . . and not getting emotionally involved?"
"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'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the
image they've made of me and that I've made of myself, as a sex symbol.
Men expect so much, and I can't live up to it."
(On meeting Joe DiMaggio for the first time) "I was surprised to be so crazy about Joe. I expected a flashy New York sports type
and instead I met this reserved guy who didn't make a pass at me right away!
He treated me like something special. Joe is a very decent man, and he makes
other people feel decent too."
(On John F. Kennedy) "It would be so nice to have a president who looks so young and
good-looking."
(On why she divorced James Dougherty) "My marriage didn't make me sad, but it didn't make me happy either. My husband and
I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn't because we were angry. We had nothing to say.
I was dying of boredom."
(Why she divorced Joe DiMaggio) "I didn't want to give up my career, and that's what
Joe wanted me to do most of all."
"He [Arthur Miller] wouldn't have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde."
HOLLYWOOD AND ACTING
"They've said I want to direct pictures. I couldn't direct traffic."
"It's all make believe, isn't it?"
"I am trying to prove to myself that I am a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that
I am an actress."
"Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was
fickle."
"It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, 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."
"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
clothes I was wearing inside. But my God, how I wanted to learn, to change, to improve!"
"I used to think as I looked at 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.'"
"Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress,
they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh.
Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work."
"If I am a star, the people made me a star. No studio, no person, but the people did."
"I want to continue my growth in every way."
"Talent is developed in privacy... but everybody is always tugging at you.
They'd all like sort of a chunk at you. They'd kind of like to take pieces out of you."
"I want to be an artist... not an erotic freak. I don't want to be sold to the
public as a celluloid aphrodisiacal."
(On stardom) "It scares me. All those people I don't know, sometimes they're so emotional.
I mean, if they love you that much without knowing you, they can also hate you the same way."
"Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe... I want to be
an artist, an actress with integrity."
"I'm going to be a great movie star some day."
"Only the public can make a star. It's the studios who try to make a system out of it."
"If I play a stupid girl, and ask a stupid question, I've got to follow it through.
What am I supposed to do, look intelligent?"
"I like actors very much, but to marry one would be like marrying your brother. You look
too much alike in the mirror."
"People respect you because they feel you've survived hard times and endured, and
although you've become famous you haven't become phony."
"I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that I was fooling somebody
-I don't know who or what-maybe myself. I have feelings some days when there are scenes with
a lot of responsibility, and I'll wish, gee, if only I would have been a cleaning woman."
(Marilyn on Billy Wilder) "I want him to direct me again. But he's doing the Lindbergh story next.
And he won't let me play Lindbergh."
"What am I afraid of? Do I think I can't act? I know I can act, but I am afraid.
I am afraid and I should not be and I must not be."
"An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of
his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin? It seems to me it's time
they stopped knocking their assets around."
"Everybody says I can't act. They said the same thing about Elizabeth Taylor. And they
were wrong. She was great in A Place in the Sun. I'll never get the right part,
anything I really want. My looks are against me. They're too specific."
"An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine."
"When you're a failure in Hollywood, that's like starving to death outside a banquet hall,
with smells of filet mignon driving you crazy."
"I strove to look like Betty Grable, but I thought Alice Faye had more class to her looks."
"I think cheesecake helps call attention to you. Then you can follow through and prove
yourself."
"My first contract with 20th Century-Fox was like my first vaccination. It didn't take."
Question by journalist: "If 50 percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no
talent and should give up, what would you do?" Marilyn: "Look, if 100 percent told me that,
all 100 percent would be wrong."
"There was my name up in lights. I said 'God, somebody's made a mistake!' But there
it was in lights. And I sat there and said, 'Remember, you're not a star.'
Yet there it was up in lights."
"Fame is fickle and I know it. It has its compensations, but it also has its drawbacks
and I've experienced them both."
"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."
"In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. 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 kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know,
because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty."
"Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they
look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh.
Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work."
"I'm looking forward to eventually becoming a marvelous, excuse the word marvelous,
character actress. Like Marie Dressler, like Will Rogers."
"Even though I was born there, I still can't think of one good thing to say about it.
If I close my eyes, and picture LA, all I see is one big varicose vein."
OTHER QUOTES
"What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No.5, of course."
(Marilyn on jealousy) "It's like salt on a steak. All you need is a little bit of it."
"I always sleep with my mouth open. I know because it's open when I wake up."
"Can you imagine me as first lady?"
"I've been on a calendar, but never on time."
"Dogs never bite me. Just humans."
"Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature."
(On posing nude for the calendar in 1949) "My sin has been no more than I have written,
posing for the nude because I desperately needed fifty dollars to get my car out of hock."
"You know, when you grow up you can get kind of sour, I mean, that's the way it can go."
"Wouldn't it be nice to be like men and get notches in your belt and sleep with most
attractive men and not get emotionally involved?"
"It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on."
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