From Jone Johnson Lewis,
Your Guide to Women's History.
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• Basic Facts: Marilyn Monroe Profile
• Marilyn Monroe Biography
• Books: Biographies of Marilyn Monroe
• Quotes about Marilyn Monroe

More quotes from Marilyn Monroe, movie star and sex symbol especially important in the 1950s.

• 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.

• An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.

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

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

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

• Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.

• 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?

• 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.

• To a reporter: Please don't make me a joke.

• That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes 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.

• Everyone's just laughing at me. I hate it. Big breasts, big ass, big deal, Can't I be anything else ? Gee, how long can you be sexy?

• Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him.

• Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.

• It's woman's spirit and mood a man has to stimulate in order to make sex interesting. The real lover is the man who can thrill you by touching your head or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.

• Men who think that a woman's past love affairs lessen her love for them are usually stupid and weak. A woman can bring a new love to each man she loves, providing there are not too many.

• Of the nude pictures: Sure I posed. I needed the money.

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

• I am invariably late for appointments ... sometimes, as much as two hours. I've tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing.

• I've often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.

• I restore myself when I'm alone.

• 1956 interview about her childhood: Looking back, I guess I used to play-act all the time. For one thing, it meant I could live in a more interesting world than the one around me.

More Marilyn Monroe Quotes: 1 | 2 | 3

More About Marilyn Monroe:

• Marilyn Monroe - Basic Dates and Facts
• Marilyn Monroe Biography

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About These Quotes

Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection © Jone Johnson Lewis 1997-2005. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.

Citation information:
Jone Johnson Lewis. "Marilyn Monroe Quotes." About Women's History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/quotes/marilyn_monroe_2.htm . Date accessed: (today). (More on how to cite online sources including this page)