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Success Quote by Linda Evans

"You can take Elvis. You can take Marilyn Monroe. Success and fame will not be the answer if something inside of you is bothering you, if things in your mind aren't going right"

About this Quote

Name-dropping Elvis and Marilyn isn’t nostalgia here; it’s a cultural shortcut. Linda Evans reaches for two icons whose images still radiate effortless glamour, then punctures that fantasy in one move. The intent is blunt: fame is not therapy. But the line works because it doesn’t argue in the abstract. It uses celebrity mythology as evidence, inviting the listener to supply the tragic footnotes: the loneliness, the self-medication, the public adoration that can’t negotiate with private pain.

Evans speaks as someone who benefited from the machine she’s critiquing. That gives the quote its edge. An actress warning that success won’t save you isn’t rejecting ambition; she’s pointing out the bait-and-switch at the heart of fame culture. We’re sold the idea that recognition is a solvent that dissolves insecurity, grief, depression, anxiety. Her subtext is that the solvent is fake. If “something inside of you is bothering you,” the spotlight doesn’t clarify it; it can distort it, turning ordinary instability into a performance and making help harder to seek.

The phrasing matters: “things in your mind aren’t going right” is plainspoken, almost careful. It sidesteps diagnostic language and goes straight to lived experience, which makes it accessible and quietly empathetic. In a culture that treats celebrity as proof of arrival, Evans flips the metric. The real measure of “going right” isn’t the audience’s applause, it’s whether you can live with yourself when the cameras are gone.

Quote Details

TopicMental Health
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Evans, Linda. (2026, January 15). You can take Elvis. You can take Marilyn Monroe. Success and fame will not be the answer if something inside of you is bothering you, if things in your mind aren't going right. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-can-take-elvis-you-can-take-marilyn-monroe-152139/

Chicago Style
Evans, Linda. "You can take Elvis. You can take Marilyn Monroe. Success and fame will not be the answer if something inside of you is bothering you, if things in your mind aren't going right." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-can-take-elvis-you-can-take-marilyn-monroe-152139/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"You can take Elvis. You can take Marilyn Monroe. Success and fame will not be the answer if something inside of you is bothering you, if things in your mind aren't going right." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-can-take-elvis-you-can-take-marilyn-monroe-152139/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Linda Evans (born November 18, 1942) is a Actress from USA.

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