Hugh Hefner quotes:

The difference between Marilyn Monroe and the early Pamela Anderson is not that great. What's amazing is that the taste of American men and international tastes in terms of beauty have essentially stayed the same. Styles change, but our view of beauty stays the same.

My first wife was a brunette, and Barbi Benton, my major romantic relationship of the early 1970s, was a brunette. But since the end of my marriage, all of my girlfriends have been blonds.

Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.

I'm very comfortable with the nature of life and death, and that we come to an end. What's most difficult to imagine is that those dreams and early yearnings and desires of childhood and adolescence will also disappear. But who knows? Maybe you become part of the eternal whatever.

I have no plans to retire. It's the perfect combination of work and play that keeps you young. If I quit work it would be the beginning of the end for me.

I was very influenced by the musicals and romantic comedies of the 1930s. I admired Gene Harlow and such, which probably explains why, since the end of my marriage, I've dated nothing but a succession of blondes.

Living in the moment, thinking about the future, and staying connected to the past: That's what makes me feel whole.

I always say now that I'm in my blonde years. Because since the end of my marriage, all of my girlfriends have been blonde.

I'm never going to grow up. Staying young is what it is all about for me.

In my own words, I played some significant part in changing the social-sexual values of our time. I had a lot of fun in the process.

I looked back on the roaring Twenties, with its jazz, 'Great Gatsby' and the pre-Code films as a party I had somehow managed to miss.

One of the problems with organized religion is that it has always kept women in a second-class position. They have been viewed as the daughters of Eve.

Picasso had his pink period and his blue period. I am in my blonde period right now.

What's amazing is that the taste of American men and international tastes in terms of beauty have essentially stayed the same. Styles change, but our view of beauty stays the same.

My folks were raised pure prohibitionist. They were very good people, with high moral standards - but very repressed. There was no hugging and kissing in my home.

I don't have dinner parties - I eat my dinner in bed.

It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people.

When I was four, we moved to the house on the west side of Chicago where I grew up. My earliest memories are of that first summer.

You know, from my point of view, I'm the luckiest cat on the planet.

Creating my own world in a comic or selling my first penny newspaper aged nine was a way of gaining recognition and acceptance by my peers.

It's hard to really compare new love and old love.

Surrounding myself with beautiful women keeps me young.

For me, the magazine was always the heart of what my life was all about, and the other half was living the life.

I have very strong theories about magazine publishing. And I think that it is the most personal form of journalism. And I think that a magazine is an old friend.

In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined a sweeter life.

The Westwood Cemetery is just a few blocks from my home, and a number of my very dear friends are buried there.

The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.

The whole 1950s notion was find the right girl, get married, move to the suburbs and then hang out with the guys while she stayed home with the babies. I felt that was sort of sad.

I got married before I found myself. People should find themselves before they get married.

People get their information in different ways now. And we are a little poorer for it, because the way you get information affects what you learn.

The difference between Marilyn Monroe and the early Pamela Anderson is not that great.

I truly believe that age -- if you're healthy -- age is just a number.

Did you know that I almost called the magazine Stag Party and the symbol was originally going to be a stag? I changed my mind just before we went to press, thank God. Somehow, it wouldn't have been the same. Can you imagine a chain of key clubs staffed by beautiful girls wearing antlers?

Playboy isn't like the downscale, male bonding, beer-swilling phenomena that is being promoted now by (some men's magazines). My whole notion was the romantic connection between male and female.

As Ray Bradbury - a longtime contributor to Playboy - said a long time ago, a lot of people, when they're talking about the contents of the magazine, they don't see the forest. People don't see the other part of my life because they're too fascinated with the girls.

When I was young I had a security blanket and a pet dog. The dog got sick and died and the blanket had to be burned, so I guess I was trying to recreate the image of security in the bunny. It was a Citizen Kane/Rosebud thing.

Historically the Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, and they promptly turned around and started persecuting the people they didn't agree with - the scarlet letter A, and the stocks and the dunking board came from that. That puritanism is still there.

The interesting thing is how one guy, through living out his own fantasies, is living out the fantasies of so many other people.

Retirement is unthinkable to me. The future is bright and very exciting and I'm looking forward to playing a part in it.

I think getting married was a mistake along the way, but at the same time I wouldn't have the wonderful children I have if I didn't get married.

For some people, there is no succession plan. They just leave, and there's no getting over it.

Someone once asked, 'What's your best pickup line?' I said, 'My best pickup line is, 'Hi, my name is Hugh Hefner.''

You stay in touch with the boy who dreamed impossible dreams.

I felt quite frankly having been raised during the depression and looking back at the roaring twenties, the jazz age, which was a very magic timer in my mind because it was something that I had missed.

I guess you could say, I'm just a typical Methodist kid at heart.

Over the course of my life I've had more than my fair share of romantic relationships with wonderful women, many moved on to live happy, healthy, and productive lives, and I'm pleased to say remain dear friends today. Sadly, there are a few who have chosen to rewrite history in an attempt to stay in the spotlight. I guess, as the old saying goes: You can't win 'em all!

There are many roads to Mecca.

I was a very idealistic, very romantic kid in a very typically Midwestern Methodist repressed home. There was no show of affection of any kind, and I escaped to dreams and fantasies produced, by and large, by the music and the movies of the '30s.

Beauty is everywhere -- on the campus, in the office, living next door ... Nice girls like sex too -- it's a natural part of life. Don't be ashamed of it.

I suggested that sex was not the enemy, that violence was the enemy, that nice girls like sex.

I think that there's nothing wrong with masturbation. If you're not feeling good about your own sexuality and your own body, you're not going to feel good about anything else.

My life is an open book. With illustrations.

I have about 100 pairs of pajamas. I like to see people dressed comfortably.

My best pick-up line is "My name is Hugh Hefner.

I think the Playboy philosophy is very, very connected to the American dream.

The notion that Playboy turns women into sex objects is ridiculous. Women are sex objects. If women weren't sex objects, there wouldn't be another generation. It's the attraction between the sexes that makes the world go 'round. That's why women wear lipstick and short skirts.

Part of the sexual revolution is bringing rationality to sexuality - because when you don't embrace sexuality in a normal way, you get the twisted kinds, and the kinds that destroy lives.

The notion of the single man began in the 1950's. The idea of the bachelor as a separate life was new and obscure.

I guess I'm the most successful man I know. I wouldn't trade places with anybody in the world.

I have been married twice, and those were not the happiest times of my life. Part of the problem, quite frankly, is that when you get married, the romance disappears and the children arrive and the love is transferred. It shouldn't be that way, but too often it is transferred to the children.

Because of the nature of my life, it's difficult for people to recognize that a person can live a full life, and maybe an unorthodox life, and still be on the side of the angels.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a, in a very romantic time in terms of music, and the music itself simple reflected the much more romantic time.

If you let society and your peers define who you are, you're the less for it.

It has been our experience that women usually prefer thin, undernourished, flatchested females, dressed to the teeth, as a concept of "feminine beauty" -- and that men prefer exactly the opposite: voluptuous, well-rounded and undressed. The women's idealization of woman is actually a male counterpart, competing with man in society; man's view of women is far more truly feminine.

The people who had the most impact on me when I was young were Freud and Darwin, but growing up I also had my film idols.

I remain very much connected to my childhood... I have never been too jaded or too sophisticated.

Sex is the driving force on the planet. We should embrace it, not see it as the enemy.

Someone once asked, 'What's your best pickup line?' I said, 'My best pickup line is, 'Hi, my name is Hugh Hefner.'

The business end of business has never interested me.

Being attacked by right-wing Christians did not bother me. Being attacked by liberal feminists did.

I am in very good health. I've never felt better.

My parents are wonderful people and they instilled in me an idealism for which I'm grateful.

After all the Puritans came to America to escape from persecution and then turned around and started persecuting other people. So I understand that conflict that we have related to play and pleasure and sexuality. And I think what has made my life worthwhile is trying to deal with some of those questions.

After world war all we got was a lot of conformity, and conservatism and when I was in college at the university of Illinois the skirt lengths dropped instead of going up as they had during the roaring twenties and I knew that was a very bad sign, and it is symbolic and reflective of a very repressive time, and some of that was laid the feet of the cold war.

America is just as much to blame as a lot of our enemies.

At a very early age I started a cartoon scrapbook, actually when I was in high school. And it became, in turn, a scrapbook of my life. And there are about 2,000 volumes.

Could I be in a better place and happier than I am today? I don't think so.

Everybody marches to a different drummer.

Follow your own particular dreams. We are handed a life by peers, parents and society, you can do that or follow your own dreams. Life is short, be a dreamer but be a practical person.

I always think, quite frankly that pop culture is a lot more important than a lot of people realize.

I am not primarily an entrepreneurial businessman. I'm primarily a playboy philosopher.

I didn't want to repeat my parents life. I saw in their lives a routine and a lack of dreaming, a lack of the possibilities, a lack of passion. And I didn't want to live without passion.

I do think the reality is, there is a general recognition of what I've accomplished.

I dreamed impossible dreams. And the dreams turned out beyond anything I could possibly imagine. You know, from my point of view, I'm the luckiest cat on the planet.

I feel saddened when people who have major friendships or marriages wind up on the outs. Because I think you lose a little piece of yourself.

I had a stroke in 1985... I called it a "stroke of luck." I said, "Life is like a train trip. You're looking out the window and everything is whipping past and you're not really seeing anything, and you need to get off the train and walk around a bit."

I remain good friends with most of the major relationships in my life.

I think age, if you are healthy, I think age is largely a number. My mother lived to be 101. So I'm planning on another quarter century.

I think that from the very beginning it wasn't simply, what made Playboy so popular was not simply the naked ladies, what made the magazine so popular was, there was a point of view in the magazine, that you couldn't run nude pictures without some kind of rational that they were art.

I think that I am the luckiest cat on the planet and I'm living out my own dreams and fantasies and have been for a number of years and to remain at this stage of my life, you know, so alive and things have never been better.

I think that retirement is the first step towards the grave.

I think that sexual oppression and dictatorship go hand in hand.

I think that the major message of my life and what I hope to be remembered for is someone who managed to change the social sexual values of his time absolutely.

I tried to make some difference, and I think I managed to do that.

I urge one and all to live this life as if there is no reward in the afterlife and to do it in a moral way that makes it better for you and for those around you, and that leaves this world a little better place than when you found it.

I was raised in a truly typical Midwestern home with a lot of repression. My life, and the creation of Playboy, were a response to that repression.

I was raised in a typical Puritan Midwestern Methodist home and there was a lot of hurt and hypocrisy in those times. And I think that whatever part Playboy played and that I managed to play in terms of the sexual revolution came out of what I saw in the negative part of that life and tried to change things in some positive way so that people could choose alternate personal ways of living their lives.

I would like to think that I will be remembered as someone who had some positive impact on the sociosexual values of his time. And I think I'm secure and happy in that.

I've never thought of Playboy, quite frankly, as a sex magazine. I always thought of it as a lifestyle magazine in which sex was one important ingredient.

If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society then the reverse was wrong, too.

If Playboy ever loses its editorial balls, then it will deserve to be knocked over by a younger, more vigorous magazine in the coming generation. But that won't happen so long as I'm alive, I can promise you that.

If you don't encourage healthy sexual expression in public, you get unhealthy sexual expression in private. If you attempt to suppress sex in books, magazines, movies and even everyday conversation, you aren't helping to make sex more private, just more hidden. You're keeping sex in the dark. What we've tried to do is turn on the lights.

I'm actually a very moral guy.

I'm not putting myself up as the epitome of virtue. I certainly am living a non-traditional life. But it is also a loving life and a very supportive one. I think that both in this, and the previous relationship, I think that I've been doing the best I can.

In many ways, Im younger than I was 20 years ago,

In the '80s and '90s we started to have economic problems because society became more conservative. So we didn't have the wherewithal for expanding to other areas.

It is the beauty of women, and the fact that they are the focus, that they are sex objects in a positive sense, is the reason we have civilization.

It's perfectly clear to me that religion is a myth. It's something we have invented to explain the inexplicable. My religion and the spiritual side of my life come from a sense of connection to the humankind and nature on this planet and in the universe. I am in overwhelming awe of it all: It is so fantastic, so complex, so beyond comprehension. What does it all mean -- if it has any meaning at all? But how can it all exist if it doesn't have some kind of meaning? I think anyone who suggests that they have the answer is motivated by the need to invent answers, because we have no such answers.

It's very difficult to censor anything anymore.

It's women who have embraced their own sexuality, it's why women wear makeup, it's why they wear high heels. It's what civilization is all about.

I've had death threats, but I've never been fearful for my life. Although I have traveled with security since the '60s.

I've nailed more women than I could count... at least I think they were women

I've never gotten enough credit!

Life is bittersweet. Inside our heads, if we're lucky, we're the same kids as we were when we were young.

Loneliness doesn't have much to do with where you are.

My folks were farm people from Nebraska, so I like home cooking.

Nothing goes on forever. I think that's one of the illusions of life. When I talk about my life being an extension of my dreams and fantasies, there's a tendency to think of them as immature. I live in a mature world. The majority of the people in this society live with delusions and illusions much more irrational and hurtful than mine. They deal with mortality, with fantasies relating to heaven and hell, and they don't really deal with their problems at all.

One of the sad things, I think, about the younger generation, quite frankly, is they have less sense of yesterday. And if you don't know who you were, you don't really know who you are.

One of the things I've tried to do with my life is redefine the boundaries that I think are very limiting. I'm not suggesting that everybody should have three girlfriends, or necessarily have girlfriends living with them. I think there are many, many options to living your life.

People project their own dreams, fantasies, and prejudices onto my life. So people are either fans, or jealous, or disagree. Everybody marches to a different drummer.