Marilyn Monroe Quotes on Performance Arts (19 Quotes)

An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.

Goethe said, 'Talent is developed in privacy, ' you knowAnd it's really true. There is a need for aloneness which I don't think most people realize for an actor. It's almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you'll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you're acting.

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 don't know if high society is different in other cities, but in Hollywood important people can't stand to be invited someplace that isn't full of other important people. They don't mind a few unfamous people being present because they make good listeners. But if a star or studio chief or any other great movie personages find themselves sitting among a lot of nobodies, they get frightened - as if somebody was trying to demote them.

Dreaming about being an actress, is more exciting then being one.

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

First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.

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.

I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest.

Some of those bastards in Hollywood wanted me to drop Arthur. Said it would ruin my career. They're born cowards and want you to be like them. One reason I want to see Kennedy win is that Nixon's associated with that whole scene.

I think if other girls know how bad I was when I started they'll be encouraged. I finally made up my mind I wanted to be an actress and I was not going to let my lack of confidence ruin my chances.

I've never been in a Hollywood fight or feud. I have the most wonderful memory for forgetting things.

I'm looking forward to eventually becoming a marvelous - excuse the word marvelous - character actress. Like Marie Dressler, like Will Rogers.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everyone jumped on his violin

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.

Someone said to me, 'If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do' My answer was then and still is, 'If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.'

When you're a failure in Hollywood, that's like starving to death outside a banquet hall, with smells of filet mignon driving you crazy.

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.

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.