Marlene dietrich quotes

Most women set out to try to change a man, and when they have changed him they do not like him.

Until they come to see us from their planet, I wait patiently. I hear them saying: Don't call us, we'll call you.

I have a child and I've made a few people happy. That is all.

There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.

H is for Hardware store: I'd rather go to the hardware store than the opera. And I like the opera.

The air and the sky seem to have been freshly washed and polished, and the people too.

I never ever took my career seriously.

When you're dead, you're dead. That's it.

Most people who make movies are in real life a bitter disappointment. I, on the other hand, am so much better in real life.

Judging by the vast amount of cookbooks printed and sold in the United States one would think the American woman a fanatical cook. She isn't.

For women, beauty is more important than the mind, because the man is easier to watch than to think.

Victory is gay only back home. Up front it is joyless.

There's something about an American soldier you can't explain. They're so grateful for anything, even a film actress coming to see them.

...it gives you the impression that every day is Sunday.

Writers, Composers, Painters, - also artists like directors and actors fall into the same category. They have to be handled with kid gloves, mentally and physically

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

When you prostitute yourself, you have to get paid for it.

Sex is much better with a woman, but then one can't live with a woman.

Soup not only warms you and is easy to swallow and to digest, it also creates the illusion in the back of your mind that Mother is there.

I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men.

I, personally, liked the legend.

Do let him read the papers. But not while you accusingly tiptoe around the room, or perch much like a silent bird of prey on the edge of your most uncomfortable chair. (He will read them anyway, and he should read them, so let him choose his own good time.) Don't make a big exit. Just go. But kiss him quickly, before you go, otherwise he might think you are angry; he is used to suspecting he is doing something wrong.

Latins are tenderly enthusiastic. In Brazil they throw flowers at you. In Argentina they throw themselves.

Lover's words: “How beautiful you are, now that you love me.”

Glamour is assurance. It is a kind of knowing that you are all right in every way, mentally and physically and in appearance, and that, whatever the occasion or the situation, you are equal to it.

It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.

[On Orson Welles:] When I talk to him, I feel like a plant that's been watered.

Being in the depths of sadness is just as important an experience as being exuberantly happy.

In America, sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it's a fact.

A country without bordellos is like a house without bathrooms.

I never enjoyed working in a film.

Grumbling is the death of love

Every human being is in need of talking to somebody. In this country nobody has time. It seems that talking to a friend has gone out of style. Now you have to pay money to go to an analyst.

Don't follow it blindly into every dark alley. Always remember that you are not a model or a mannequin for which the fashion is created.

Tenderness is greater proof of love than the most passionate of vows.

The British have an umbilical cord which has never been cut and through which tea flows constantly. It is curious to watch them in times of sudden horror, tragedy or disaster. The pulse stops apparently, and nothing can be done, and not one move made, until a “nice cup of tea” is quickly made. There is no question that it brings solace and does steady the mind. What a pity all countries are not.

The Germans and I no longer speak the same language.

You can't live without illusions, even if you must fight for them.

Your daughter is your child for life.

Duties are what make life most worth living. Lacking them, you are not necessary to anyone.

Gentleman. A man who buys two of the same morning paper from the doorman of his favorite nightclub when he leaves with his girl.

I have been photographed to death.

Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.

The tears I have cried over Germany have dried. I have washed my face.

A new kind of award has been added -- the deathbed award. It is not an award of any kind. Either the recipient has not acted at all, or was not nominated, or did not win the award the last few times around. It is intended to relieve the guilty conscience of the Academy members and save face in front of the public. The Academy has the horrible taste to have a star, choking with emotion, present this deathbed award so that there can be no doubt in anybody's mind why the award is so hurriedly given. Lucky is the actor who is too sick to watch the proceedings on television.

The average man is more interested in a woman who is interested in him than he is in a woman with beautiful legs.

Champagne makes you feel like it's Sunday and better days are just around the corner.

I'm not an actress, I'm a personality.

What a man notices first about a woman is whether she notices him.

In language gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English?

Seeing twilight fall should be prescribed by doctors.

Love affairs are the real only education in life.

A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.

Morocco: Looks better in films.

Darling, the legs aren't so beautiful, I just know what to do with them.

Timing: The alpha and omega of aerialists, jugglers, actors, diplomats, publicists, generals, prizefighters, revolutionists, financiers, dictators, lovers.

If there is a supreme being, he's crazy.

In Europe, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman - we make love with anyone we find attractive.

one should be afraid of life, not of death.

On Becoming a 'Lady': What every mother wants her daughter to be.

The relationship between the make-up man and the film actor is that of accomplices in crime

I am at heart a gentleman.

Logic is the key to an all-inclusive spiritual well-being.

To lose your prejudices you must travel.

There comes a time when suddenly you realize that laughter is something you remember and that you were the one laughing.

Habit: Often mistaken for love.

I'm worth more dead than alive. Don't cry for me after I'm gone; cry for me now.

America took me into her bosom when there was no longer a country worthy of the name, but in my heart I am German - German in my soul.

On Teasing : Teach your teen-age daughters not to tease boys into physical desire. You might save their lives.

Soft drinks: The gooey, bubbly sea drowning our American children.

Dietrich would never do that

What remains is solitude.

I had no desire to be an film actress, to always play somebody else, to be always beautiful with somebody constantly straightening out your every eyelash. It was always a big bother to me.

Friendship is a precious gift that can't be bought or sold. It's value is greater than mountains made of gold. If you shall ask God for a gift be thankful if he sends not diamonds pearls or riches but the love and trust of friends. It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.

It's the friend you call up at four o'clock in the morning that really matters.

Glamour is what I sell, it's my stock in trade.

I was raised almost entirely on turnips and potatoes, but I think that the turnips had more to do with the effect than the potatoes.

He [Ernest Hemingway] is gentle, as all real men are gentle; without tenderness, a man is uninteresting.

Courage and grace is a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is the bullring.

Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.

Where have all the flowers gone

Without tenderness, a man is uninteresting.

Careful grooming may take twenty years off a woman's age, but you can't fool a flight of stairs.

Love for the joy of loving, and not for the offerings of someone else's heart.

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

How do you know love is gone? If you said that you would be there at seven and you get there by nine, and he or she has not called the police yet - it's gone.

The weak are more likely to make the strong weak than the strong are likely to make the weak strong.

[On Las Vegas:] I love that town. No clocks. No locks. No restrictions.

To be completely woman you need a master, and in him a compass for your life. You need a man you can look up to and respect. If you dethrone him it's no wonder that you are discontented, and discontented women are not loved for long.

I do not think that we have a “right” to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.

Chanel was a workaholic. She must have had a lot to forget.

Words can bruise and break hearts, and minds as well. There are no black and blue marks, no broken bones to put in plaster casts, and therefore no prison bars for the offender.

A man would prefer to come home to an unmade bed and a happy woman than to a neatly made bed and an angry woman.

It is my private life which no one knows anything about, nor ever will. It needs more than half my time if it is to be a success.