Hugh Hefner Quotes

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.

We indeed did and do own our own minds and bodies, and anything from church or state that limits that is inappropriate and inconsistent with the ... society that America is supposed to be.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The religious heritage sort of suggests implicitly and explicitly that you pay your dues and you get your reward later on, that's a little inconsistent with the notion of personal, happiness. I am a strong believer in a set of values that are rooted in the notion of happiness and personal fulfillment.

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.

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.

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

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

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'm actually a very moral guy.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

If a beautiful women expressed interest in me and my company, I don't really probe their motivations. Call me shallow.

The phenomena there is something in us that on the one hand bonds us with like people but somehow makes us suspicious of other people.

Surrounding myself with beautiful women keeps me young.

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

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.

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.

My life is an open book. With illustrations.

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.

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

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.

There are many roads to Mecca.

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!

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.

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.

Power has not corrupted me. I have not become jaded. I wake up every day well aware of my good fortune, loving the work I do, loving my life, realizing that life is a crapshoot and I'm on a roll second to none.

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

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 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.

There's always been a little bit of the crusader in me, and you need dragons to slay, without the conflict and the controversy I think that what I managed to do less, and I take a great deal of pride in the accomplishment.

They must be doing something right up there in Canada.

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.

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'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.

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

Women have traditionally been either put on pedestals or damned as the source of all sexual temptation and sin. These are two sides of the same coin, since both place women in a nonhuman role. Playboy has opposed these warped sexual values and, in so doing, helped women step down from their pedestals and enjoy their natural sexuality as much as men.

Smoking helped put me in touch with the realm of the senses.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

There were chunks of my life when I was married, and when I was married I never cheated. But I made up for it when I wasn't married. You have to keep your hand in.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I think being connected to younger people helps to keep you young and gives you a young attitude.

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

Without question, love in its various permutations is what we need more of in this world. The idea that the concept of marriage will be sullied by same-sex marriage is ridiculous. Heterosexuals haven't been doing that well at it on their own.

Playboy was founded on the notion that nice girls like sex too.

Since time immemorial, youth has set the universal standard of physical beauty, and the reason is simply that a shapely firm young face and body are more attractive sexually and aesthetically than bulges, sags and wrinkles.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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