Marilyn Monroe: In the words of others
"This is a little kid who wants to be with other little kids sucking lollipops and watching the rollercoaster, but she can't because they won't let her. She's frightened to death of that public which thinks she is so sexy. My God, if they only knew" - Allan "Whitey" Snyder
"...She was chewed and spat out by a long line of grinning men! Her name floating in the stench of locker rooms and parlor-car cigar smoke!" - Quentin on Maggie in Arthur Millers After the Fall
"She is a beautiful child. I don't think she's an actress at all, not in any traditional sense. What she is--this presence, this luminosity, this flickering intelligence--could never surface on the stage. It's so fragile and subtle, it can only be caught by the camera....But anyone who thinks this girl is simply another Harlow or harlot or whatever, is mad. I hope, I really pray, that she survives long enough to free the strange lovely talent that's wandering through her like a jailed spirit." - Constance Collier
"The girl was an addict of sleeping tablets and she was made so by the goddam doctors." - John Huston
Marilyn, In her own words:
"You sit alone. It's night outside. Automobiles roll Sunset Boulevard like an endless string of beetles. Their rubber tires make a purring high-class noise. You're hungry, and you say, 'It's not good for my waistline to eat.' There's nothing finer than a washboard belly." - MM on her struggling years
"I was never used to being happy, so that wasn't something I ever took for granted. You see, I was brought up differently from the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy."
"No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they're pretty, even if they aren't."
"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, becuase I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty."
"What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course."
"Dogs never bite me. Just humans."
"Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, Fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle."
"It might be kind of a relief to be finished."
"Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe. I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one. I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity."
Her last words on a movie screen were: "How do you find your way back in the dark?"
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