Marilyn in Her Own Words

The flashback scenes with Marilyn Monroe in Altar of Bones are some of my favorite I’ve ever written. Many of Marilyn’s lines in the book are things she actually said. Here are some more memorable quotes from her:

“A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold night.”

“Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.”

“I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.”

“All a girl really wants is for one guy to prove to her that they are not at all the same.”

“If you’re gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.”

“Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”

“I think cheesecake helps call attention to you. Then you can follow through and prove yourself.”

“It’s far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.”

“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.”

“Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.”

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

“That’s the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. But if I’m going to be a symbol of something, I’d rather it sex than some of the things we’ve got symbols of.”

“Only the public can make a star. It’s the studios who try to make a system out of it.”

“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.”

“Fame is fickle and I know it. It has its compensations, but it also has its drawbacks and I’ve experienced them both.”

“I always felt insecure and in the way – but most of all I felt scared. I guess I wanted love more than anything else in the world.”

“I was a mistake. My mother didn’t want to have me. I guess she never wanted me. I probably got in her way. I know I disgraced her. A divorced woman has enough problems getting a man, I guess, but one with an illegitimate baby…. I wish, I still wish, she had wanted me.”

“I always felt I was nobody and the only way for me to be somebody was to be… well, somebody else.”

“Well behaved women rarely make history.”

“My great ambition is to have people comment on my fine dramatic performances.”

“I am a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me because of the image they have made of me and that I have made of myself, as a sex symbol. Men expect so much and I can’t live up to it. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy’s the same as any other woman’s. I can’t live up to it.”

“You can’t sleep your way into being a star. It takes much, much more. But it helps a lot of actresses get their first chance that way.”

“No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they are pretty, even if they aren’t.”

“I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.”

“I want to grow old without face-lifts… I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made. Sometimes, I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know yourself.”