Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.
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.
The business end of business has never interested me.
Picasso had his pink period and his blue period. I am in my blonde period right now.
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.
If a beautiful women expressed interest in me and my company, I don't really probe their motivations. Call me shallow.
Being attacked by right-wing Christians did not bother me. Being attacked by liberal feminists did.
For me, the magazine was always the heart of what my life was all about, and the other half was living the life.
I got married before I found myself. People should find themselves before they get married.
The difference between Marilyn Monroe and the early Pamela Anderson is not that great.
In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined a sweeter life.
Several girlfriends are easier to handle than one wife.
Creating my own world in a comic or selling my first penny newspaper aged nine was a way of gaining recognition and acceptance by my peers.
It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people.
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.
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.
In many ways, Im younger than I was 20 years ago,
Playboy exploits sex the way Sports Illustrated exploits sports.
Loneliness doesn't have much to do with where you are.
Smoking helped put me in touch with the realm of the senses.
Publishing a sophisticated men's magazine seemed to me the best possible way of fulfilling a dream I'd been nurturing ever since I was a teenager: to get laid a lot.
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.
I've had death threats, but I've never been fearful for my life. Although I have traveled with security since the '60s.
I think being connected to younger people helps to keep you young and gives you a young attitude.
I tried to make some difference, and I think I managed to do that.
I think age, if you are healthy, I think age is largely a number. My mother lived to be 101. So I'm planning on another quarter century.
They must be doing something right up there in Canada.
I do think the reality is, there is a general recognition of what I've accomplished.
What would make it very difficult to take society back to a repressive time would be technology. The arrival of the Internet.
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.
Retirement is unthinkable to me. The future is bright and very exciting and I'm looking forward to playing a part in it.
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.
I am not primarily an entrepreneurial businessman. I'm primarily a playboy philosopher.
America is just as much to blame as a lot of our enemies.
I dreamed impossible dreams. And the dreams turned out beyond anything I could possibly imagine. You know, from my point of view, I'm the luckiest cat on the planet.
What surprises me about getting older is that I remain so young.
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.
Beauty is everywhere -- on the campus, in the office, living next door ... Nice girls like sex too -- it's a natural part of life. Don't be ashamed of it.
There are many roads to Mecca.
Everybody marches to a different drummer.
Life is bittersweet. Inside our heads, if we're lucky, we're the same kids as we were when we were young.
I remain good friends with most of the major relationships in my life.
I feel saddened when people who have major friendships or marriages wind up on the outs. Because I think you lose a little piece of yourself.
Television, cable, the Internet, that's knocked the boundaries down.
I truly believe that age -- if you're healthy -- age is just a number.
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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.
You really don't create an authoritarian society unless you control the personal choices including the sexual choices of the people.
It is the beauty of women, and the fact that they are the focus, that they are sex objects in a positive sense, is the reason we have civilization.
I’ve never thought of Playboy, quite frankly, as a sex magazine. I always thought of it as a lifestyle magazine in which sex was one important ingredient.
I always think, quite frankly that pop culture is a lot more important than a lot of people realize.
You stay in touch with the boy who dreamed impossible dreams.
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.
Playboy, very clearly, from the outset, has fought against the historical repression of women. The notion that we were anywhere else simply defies the reality.
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.
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.
Part of the sexual revolution is bringing rationality to sexuality - because when you don't embrace sexuality in a normal way, you get the twisted kinds, and the kinds that destroy lives.
I was raised in a truly typical Midwestern home with a lot of repression. My life, and the creation of Playboy, were a response to that repression.
Follow your own particular dreams. We are handed a life by peers, parents and society, you can do that or follow your own dreams. Life is short, be a dreamer but be a practical person.
I think that sexual oppression and dictatorship go hand in hand.
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.
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.
My life is an open book. With illustrations.
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.
I guess you could say, I'm just a typical Methodist kid at heart.
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.
Sex is the driving force on the planet. We should embrace it, not see it as the enemy.
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.
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.
You know, from my point of view, I'm the luckiest cat on the planet.
I remain very much connected to my childhood... I have never been too jaded or too sophisticated.
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.
I have about 100 pairs of pajamas. I like to see people dressed comfortably.
Could I be in a better place and happier than I am today? I don't think so.
The Westwood Cemetery is just a few blocks from my home, and a number of my very dear friends are buried there.
I'm never going to grow up. Staying young is what it is all about for me.
Living in the moment, thinking about the future, and staying connected to the past: That's what makes me feel whole.
Someone once asked, 'What's your best pickup line?' I said, 'My best pickup line is, 'Hi, my name is Hugh Hefner.'
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'm actually a very moral guy.
It's hard to really compare new love and old love.
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.
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.
If you let society and your peers define who you are, you're the less for it.
I don't have dinner parties - I eat my dinner in bed.
I have very strong theories about magazine publishing. And I think that it is the most personal form of journalism. And I think that a magazine is an old friend.
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 that retirement is the first step towards the grave.
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.
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 am in very good health. I've never felt better.
My parents are wonderful people and they instilled in me an idealism for which I'm grateful.
The notion of the single man began in the 1950's. The idea of the bachelor as a separate life was new and obscure.
The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.
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.
Surrounding myself with beautiful women keeps me young.
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.
The interesting thing is how one guy, through living out his own fantasies, is living out the fantasies of so many other people.
I guess I'm the most successful man I know. I wouldn't trade places with anybody in the world.
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.
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 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.
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.
