Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.
Hugh Hefner
You know, from my point of view, I'm the luckiest cat on the planet.
Someone once asked, 'What's your best pickup line?' I said, 'My best pickup line is, 'Hi, my name is Hugh Hefner.'
Picasso had his pink period and his blue period. I am in my blonde period right now.
With the rabbit as our emblem, when we got to the point in 1960 of opening the first Playboy Club... one of our executives suggested the possibility of a bunny costume. We tried it out, and I made some modifications - added the cuffs and the bow tie and collar - and the bunny was born.
In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined a sweeter life.
Living in the moment, thinking about the future, and staying connected to the past: That's what makes me feel whole.
I don't have dinner parties - I eat my dinner in bed.
The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.
I'm never going to grow up. Staying young is what it is all about for me.
Surrounding myself with beautiful women keeps me young.
'Playboy' was not a sex magazine as far as I was concerned. Sex was simply part of the total package; I was trying to bring sex into the fold of a healthy lifestyle.
It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people.
It is women who have traditionally, historically been given non-human roles, perceived as simply the daughters of Eve, perceived as either Madonna or whore. And I think that it is the sexual revolution that plays one part in female emancipation.
I have about 100 pairs of pajamas. I like to see people dressed comfortably.
Sex is the driving force on the planet. We should embrace it, not see it as the enemy.
Ageism is a variation of racism or sexism, all the other isms.
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.
To pursue your dreams, to have them come true, to have made a difference, to have changed society, to have fought against powerful forces... that's a life well-spent.
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.
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.
It's hard to really compare new love and old love.
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.
If you let society and your peers define who you are, you're the less for it.
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.
The notion of the single man began in the 1950's. The idea of the bachelor as a separate life was new and obscure.
When 'Penthouse' and 'Hustler' came along, they confused what I was trying to do. Before they arrived, we were perceived as a sophisticated men's magazine.
For me, the magazine was always the heart of what my life was all about, and the other half was living the life.
My mother loaned me $1000. The first issue came out at the end of 1953. I knew I needed something original. I had a photographer shoot a 3D feature for the first issue and learned it would cost too much money. When the 3D thing turned out to be too expensive, at that same moment I came across the photos of Marilyn Monroe.
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.
Men project their fantasies onto me; they live them through who they think I am.
I got married before I found myself. People should find themselves before they get married.
Being attacked by right-wing Christians did not bother me. Being attacked by liberal feminists did.
My parents are wonderful people and they instilled in me an idealism for which I'm grateful.
If I ever try to get married again, shoot me.
Even when I was young, I said age is largely a state of mind if you're healthy.
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 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.
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.
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.
The women's movement kind of came out of left field in the 1960s and 1970s when they turned on 'Playboy.'
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.
The interesting thing is how one guy, through living out his own fantasies, is living out the fantasies of so many other people.
Could I be in a better place and happier than I am today? I don't think so.
There's almost a Rorschach-test quality about writing about 'Playboy'. What comes out in the press is not so much about me as it is about society.
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. After World War Two, I expected something similar, a return to the period after the first war, but when the skirt lengths went down instead of up, I knew we were in big trouble.
I'm not an active feminist: I'm an active humanist.
The difference between Marilyn Monroe and the early Pamela Anderson is not that great.
I think that retirement is the first step towards the grave.
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.
