It's all make believe, isn't it? 

If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.

I'm very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.

• I don't know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.

I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.

I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful.

I'm trying to find myself as a person, sometimes that's not easy to do. Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do. The best way for me to find myself as a person is to prove to myself that I am an actress.

I am trying to prove to myself that I am a person. Then may be I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.

People respect you because they feel you've survived hard times and endured, and although you've become famous, you haven't become phony.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer.

 I love to do the things the censors won't pass.

What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can't I just be an ordinary woman? A woman who can have a family ... I'd settle for just one baby. My own baby.

I have too many fantasies to be a housewife.... I guess I am a fantasy.

A career is wonderful thing, but you can't snuggle up to it on a cold night.

 It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone.

It's better for the whole world to know you, even as a sex star, than never to be known at all.

My work is the only ground I've ever had to stand on. I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation -- but I'm working on the foundation.

Acting isn't something you do. Instead of doing it, it occurs. If you're going to start with logic, you might as well give up. You can have conscious preparation, but you have unconscious results.

A career is born in public -- talent in privacy.

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!

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 for the individual as opposed to the corporation. The way it is the individual is the underdog, and with all the things a corporation has going for them the individual comes out banged on her head. The artist is nothing. It's really tragic.

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

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.