Today, a collection of quotes by screen legend Marilyn Monroe.

 “I am not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.”

 “There was my name up in lights. I said, ‘God, somebody’s made a mistake.’ But there it was, in lights. And I sat there and said, ‘Remember, you’re not a star.’ Yet there it was up in lights.”

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

 “Everybody is always tugging at you. They’d all like a sort of chunk out of you. I don’t think they realize it, but it’s like ‘grrr do this, grr do that...’ But you do want to stay intact -- intact and on two feet.”

 “It stirs up envy, fame does. People...feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you -- and it won’t hurt your feelings -- like it’s happening to your clothing.”

 “I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.”

 “With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself -- for survival and living day to day with what comes up.”

 “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 it’s compensations, but it also has it’s drawbacks, and I’ve experienced them both.”

“My illusions didn’t have anything to do with being a fine actress, I knew how third rate I was. I coud 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.”

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

 “I was never used to being happy, so that wasn’t something I ever took for granted. I did sort of think, you know, marriage did that. You see, I was brought up differently from the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy -- that’s it, successful, happy, and on time.”

“I used to think as I looked at 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.’”

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

 “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.”

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

 “Goethe said,’Talent is developed in privacy,’ you know? And 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.”