Hugh Hefner
Surrounding myself with beautiful women keeps me young.Collection: Women
Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Dating
The whole 1950s notion was find the right girl, get married, move to the suburbs and then hang out with the guys while she stayed home with the babies. I felt that was sort of sad.Collection: Home
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.Collection: Dreams
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.Collection: Amazing
I was an absent dad. Once the magazine started, I really had two families. The dream was the magazine. I worked through the night all the time.Collection: Dad
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.Collection: Romantic
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.Collection: Romantic
Someone once asked, 'What's your best pickup line?' I said, 'My best pickup line is, 'Hi, my name is Hugh Hefner.'Collection: Best
You know, from my point of view, I'm the luckiest cat on the planet.Collection: Chance
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.Collection: Amazing
In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined a sweeter life.Collection: Dreams
The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.Collection: Religion
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.Collection: Dreams
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.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Religion
Picasso had his pink period and his blue period. I am in my blonde period right now.
Sex is the driving force on the planet. We should embrace it, not see it as the enemy.
I'm never going to grow up. Staying young is what it is all about for me.
It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people.
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.
I think everyone should get married. I just took a little longer than usual.
Living in the moment, thinking about the future, and staying connected to the past: That's what makes me feel whole.
Even when I was young, I said age is largely a state of mind if you're healthy.
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 got married before I found myself. People should find themselves before they get married.
I guess I'm the most successful man I know. I wouldn't trade places with anybody in the world.
The people who had the most impact on me when I was young were Freud and Darwin, but growing up I also had my film idols.
It's hard to really compare new love and old love.
I don't have dinner parties - I eat my dinner in bed.
I think that retirement is the first step towards the grave.
Sex, and the attraction between the sexes, does make the world go 'round.
The interesting thing is how one guy, through living out his own fantasies, is living out the fantasies of so many other people.
I remain very much connected to my childhood... I have never been too jaded or too sophisticated.
I'm actually a very moral guy.
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'm not an active feminist: I'm an active humanist.
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.
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 women's movement, from my point of view, was part of the larger sexual revolution that 'Playboy' had played such a large part in. The reality is that the major beneficiaries of the sexual revolution are women.
The difference between Marilyn Monroe and the early Pamela Anderson is not that great.
The notion of the single man began in the 1950's. The idea of the bachelor as a separate life was new and obscure.
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.
Men project their fantasies onto me; they live them through who they think I am.
Could I be in a better place and happier than I am today? I don't think so.
I separated ways from the American feminist movement when they became anti-sexual. I believe embracing sexuality is a part of what it means to be free.
Ageism is a variation of racism or sexism, all the other isms.
Being attacked by right-wing Christians did not bother me. Being attacked by liberal feminists did.
Part of the concept behind the magazine was breaking barriers. And it wasn't just a sexual thing. It was racial and doing the things that were right. And in the process, that set 'Playboy' apart.