Marlene Dietrich quotes:

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Germans and I no longer speak the same language.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Grumbling is the death of love

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

one should be afraid of life, not of death.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

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

Without tenderness, a man is uninteresting.

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

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.

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

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.

Grumbling is the death of love.

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

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

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

[The lover says:] How beautiful you are, now that you love me.

A country without bordellos is like a house without bathrooms.

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.

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

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

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

Dietrich would never do that

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Habit: Often mistaken for love.

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

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.

I am at heart a gentleman.

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

I have been photographed to death

I never enjoyed working in a film.

I never ever took my career seriously.

I, personally, liked the legend.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Love affairs are the real only education in life.

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

Morocco: Looks better in films.

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

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

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

Seeing twilight fall should be prescribed by doctors.

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

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

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 no 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 so tea-conscious. World-peace conferences would run more smoothly if "a nice cup of tea", or indeed, a samovar were available at the proper time.

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

Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.

To lose your prejudices you must travel.

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

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

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

What remains is solitude.

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

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

Where have all the flowers gone

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.

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

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

Your daughter is your child for life.