"I had to use my wits or..." - Quote by Marilyn Monroe
I had to use my wits or else I'd have been sunk - and nothings going to sink me. Everyone was always pulling at me, tugging at me, as if they wanted a piece of me. It was always, 'do this, do that,' and not just on the job but off, too. God, I've tried to stay intact, whole.
More by Marilyn Monroe
“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.”
“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.”
“Nights are not just for sleep.”
More on Resilience
“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
“I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to extreme old age.”
“Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.”
More on Self Preservation
“He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.”
“Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. Its one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.”
“Humor is the most engaging cowardice.”