"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"
About this Quote
The subtext cuts against the “happy sex symbol” myth that mid-century Hollywood sold so aggressively. Monroe frames herself less as a woman who chose the spotlight than as someone for whom the spotlight became the only consistent relationship. “Belonged” does a lot of work: it’s not just about being loved, it’s about being owned, claimed, placed somewhere. By insisting she belonged to “the public and to the world,” she exposes how celebrity turns intimacy into a mass possession, a kind of distributed custody. Everyone gets a piece; no one has to keep her.
Context matters: Monroe’s childhood instability, the studio system’s assembly-line manufacture of personas, the era’s appetite for a consumable, endlessly available femininity. This sentence reads like someone recognizing the bargain after it’s already signed. The sadness isn’t that she lacked talent or beauty; it’s that those qualities became irrelevant next to the deeper truth: the world didn’t fall for her humanity. It took her because she was, in a way that feels almost administrative, free to take.
Quote Details
| Topic | Loneliness |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Monroe, Marilyn. (2026, January 17). 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. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-knew-i-belonged-to-the-public-and-to-the-world-26223/
Chicago Style
Monroe, Marilyn. "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." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-knew-i-belonged-to-the-public-and-to-the-world-26223/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"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." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-knew-i-belonged-to-the-public-and-to-the-world-26223/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
