Quotes from Hugh Hefner

We indeed did and do own our own minds and bodies, and anything from church or state that limits that is inappropriate and inconsistent with the ... society that America is supposed to be.

Follow your own particular dreams. We are handed a life by peers, parents and society, you can do that or follow your own dreams. Life is short, be a dreamer but be a practical person.

For me, the magazine was always the heart of what my life was all about, and the other half was living the life.

I think that the major message of my life and what I hope to be remembered for is someone who managed to change the social sexual values of his time absolutely.

I didn't want to repeat my parents life. I saw in their lives a routine and a lack of dreaming, a lack of the possibilities, a lack of passion. And I didn't want to live without passion.

I was raised in a truly typical Midwestern home with a lot of repression. My life, and the creation of Playboy, were a response to that repression.

You really don't create an authoritarian society unless you control the personal choices including the sexual choices of the people.

Because of the nature of my life, it's difficult for people to recognize that a person can live a full life, and maybe an unorthodox life, and still be on the side of the angels.

There were chunks of my life when I was married, and when I was married I never cheated. But I made up for it when I wasn't married. You have to keep your hand in.

People project their own dreams, fantasies, and prejudices onto my life. So people are either fans, or jealous, or disagree. Everybody marches to a different drummer.

I remain good friends with most of the major relationships in my life.

I separated ways from the American feminist movement when they became anti-sexual. I believe embracing sexuality is a part of what it means to be free.

Being attacked by right-wing Christians did not bother me. Being attacked by liberal feminists did.

Life and values do run in cycles.

The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.

I've had death threats, but I've never been fearful for my life. Although I have traveled with security since the '60s.

At a very early age I started a cartoon scrapbook, actually when I was in high school. And it became, in turn, a scrapbook of my life. And there are about 2,000 volumes.

I have no plans to retire. It's the perfect combination of work and play that keeps you young. If I quit work it would be the beginning of the end for me.

If I ever try to get married again, shoot me.

I got married before I found myself. People should find themselves before they get married.

I have very strong theories about magazine publishing. And I think that it is the most personal form of journalism. And I think that a magazine is an old friend.

I would like to think that I will be remembered as someone who had some positive impact on the sociosexual values of his time. And I think I'm secure and happy in that.

What would make it very difficult to take society back to a repressive time would be technology. The arrival of the Internet.

I was writing and cartooning and writing short stories from grade school on.