“I want to find myself, way deep inside. And enjoy being myself. It isn’t easy. Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.”

Happy 86th Birthday Marilyn Monroe!

“Norma Jeane was always a butterfly. She was beautiful all her life, within and without. During our courtship and marriage I never stopped loving to be with her, to stare at her, to laugh with and love her. We had a wonderful, joyful marriage. But in the end, it was not enough for Norma Jeane. Like all beautiful butterflies, she had to fly away.”

“Oh sure, it gets lonesome at times living alone; I’d rather be married and have children and a man to love—but you can’t have everything in life the way you want it. You have to accept what comes your way.”

“When everything isn’t going all right, don’t brood about it! There’s sure to be something better waiting for you if you strive for it. Just be ready for your big chance. Success is up to you, and if you think it’s worth it, it will be yours!”

“I just want to forget about all the unhappiness, all the misery [my mother] had in her life, and I had in mine. I can’t forget it, but I’d like to try. When I am Marilyn Monroe and don’t think about Norma Jeane, then sometimes it works.”

“I’m just mad about men. If only there was someone special—of course I would like to be in love. But for marriage again? It hasn’t entered my mind since my last one [to Arthur Miller]. The right man might help. I hate living alone—but I’m doing it.”

“All I ever wanted out of life is to be nice to people and have them be nice to me. It’s a fair exchange. And I’m a woman. I want to be loved by a man, from his heart, as I would love him from mine. I’ve tried, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Sometimes I think the only people who stay with me and really listen are people I hire, people I pay. And that makes me sad. Why can’t I have friends around me all the time, friends who want nothing from me?”

“Sometimes I wonder what the night time is for. It almost doesn’t exist for me — it all seems like one long, long horrible day.”

“There were times when I’d be with one of my husbands and I’d run into one of these Hollywood heels at a party and they’d paw me cheaply in front of everybody as if they were saying, ‘Oh, we had her.’ I guess it’s the classic situation of an ex-whore, though I was never a whore in that sense. I was never kept; I always kept myself.”