Quotes from Marilyn Monroe

I don't look at myself as a commodity, but I'm sure a lot of people have.

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.

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

A girl does not need anyone who does not need her.

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

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

Just because you fall once, doesn't mean you're fall at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always trust yourself, because if you don't then who will??

I think that when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated.

I never wanted to be Marilyn - it just happened. Marilyn's like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.

Sometimes, wearing a scarf and a polo coat and no makeup and with a certain attitude of walking, I go shopping or just look at people living. But then, you know, there will be a few teenagers who are kind of sharp, and they'll say, 'Hey, just a minute. You know who I think that is?' And they'll start tailing me. And I don't mind.

In fact, my popularity seems almost entirely a masculine phenomenon.

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

Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I'm invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who'll play the piano after dinner, and I know you're not really invited for yourself. You're just an ornament.

Someone said to me, 'If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do?' My answer was then and still is, 'If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.'

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.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

Cutting negative people from my life does not mean I hate them, it simply means I respect me.

The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead.

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.

She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that's important—you know

The more I think of it, the more I realize there are no answers. Life is to be lived.

That's the story of my life; I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

Maybe I'll never be able to do what I hope to, but at least I have hope.

It's not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do - everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.