Marlene Dietrich’s A-B-C Excerpts

The quotes you will find below are from a wonderful book written by Marlene Dietrich herself, and published by Doubleday. It was printed in the United States and was copyrighted in 1961, 1962. Like a “Dietrich Dictionary” this book is indispensable to fans of Marlene.

A * B * C * D * E * F * G * H * I * J * K * L * M * N * O * P * Q * R S * T * U * V * W * X * Y * Z

A

Accordian
A sound I love. Probably because my ear connects it with France.

Affection
The most necessary food for the soul. More important than humans realize, or want to realize.

Alone
For most of us to be alone is misery.

Arrogance
On Some people it looks good.

Art
A much abused word.

Astaire, Fred
Elegant! Elegant! Elegant!

B

Babushka
When your hair isn’t done or when you had no time to wash it – grab that scarf and you’ll be pretty and neat.

Baby
The all-important. The wonder. The never-disappointing. The reason for enduring anything and everything. Living confidence. The epitome of trust. A fragile, helpless Hercules.

Bachelor
Bachelorhood – a blessed state, unless you are old or middle-aged.

Baths

I love them except they make me lazy.

Bed

It’s a good thing or it’s bad, but beautiful! (Lyric by Johnny Burke)

Bistro
When you are really hungry,
When you don’t want to to dress up,
When you want to feel at home,
Go there.

C

Candles
In churches and when electricity fails they are all right.

Car
Is a man’s best toy.

Cavalier
A species that is dying out.

Chocolate
Chocolate and brandy
Chocolate and calvados
Chocolate and whiskey
Chocolate and anything resembling alcohol
All make a good soldier’s breakfast.

Compassion
Without it you mean little.

Coward, Noel
His names belies him. He is brave as a lion.

D

Dance
The men I like to talk to are invariably nondancers.

Daughter
Your daughter is your child for life.

Dietrich
In the German language: the name for a key that opens all locks. Not a magic key. A very real object, necessitating great skills in the making.

Dress (On a budget)
Here are some basic rules: Don’t ever follow the latest trend, because in a short time you will look ridiculous. Don’t buy green, red or any other flamboyant-colour dress. A small wardrobe must consist of outfits that you can wear again and again. Therefore, black, navy blue and grey are your favorite colours. Don’t buy separates. Don’t believe the sales talk that you can have five dresses for the price of one. And don’t buy cheap materials, no matter how attractive the dress looks to you. Don’t say you can’t afford a dress made of expensive materials. Save up for it. If you have one good suit, preferably grey (navy gets shiny), two black dresses, a black wool skirt, a couple of black and grey sweaters, you’ll be well dressed most of the year until summer, when you’ll wear simple cotton dresses. Another suggestion, don’t send your clothes to the cleaner’s all the time. Spot-clean and press them yourself. It’s worth it because they last longer. And while you’re saving up for that good black dress, on your next date wear a black sweater and skirt. Nothing wrong with that as long as you don’t ruin the elegance of the outfit by overemphasis of the bosom.

E

Eating
all real men lover to eat. Any man who picks at his food, breaking off little pieces with his fork, pushing one aside, picking up another, pushing bits around the plate, etc., usually has something wrong with him. And I don’t mean with his stomach.

Egocentric
If he is a creative artist, forgive him.

Elegance
Rarely found today. Women are not brought up to know about it and therefore lack even the desire to acquire it.

Expensive
Expensive things look expensive. There is always a connoisseur in the crowd.

Eyes
I like light eyes. The changes in expression and emotion are beautiful to see.

F

Fairy Tale
The certainty of the happy end is the magic of the tale.

Fame
If fame would be synonymous with fortune, wouldn’t that be fine?

Fashion
Don’t follow it blindly into every dark alley. Always remember that you are not a model or a mannequin for which the fashion is created.

Femininity
Woman’s greatest asset. Her own magnetic field into which the man is drawn.

Forgiveness
Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.

G

Garden
“Let us take care of our happiness, go into the garden and work.”

Gender
At the best of times gender is difficult to determine.

Glamour
The which I would like to know the meaning of.

Generosity
A great luxury reserved for the rich who rarely take the opportunity to enjoy it. Most people with truly generous tendencies don’t have the same means to be generous with.

Girdle
An unattractive object. Women have immense faith in the miracles a girdle can produce. I believe they are labouring under a false illusion. I don’t feel equipped to argue to vehemently about the pros and cons of girdles, except to say that the natural line of a woman’s body has its points.

Gossip
Nobody will tell you gossip in you don’t listen.

Grief
Grief is a private affair.

Grumbling
Grumbling is the death of love.

H

Habit
Often mistaken for love.

Hammock
The ultimate of quietude.
The Do Not Disturb sign in a garden.

Happiness
I do not think we have a “right” to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.

Harmony
I need harmony around me more than food, drink, and sleep.

Hats
They can be great fun. And it is true that they can put a woman in a good mood. Anyone who laughs at this fact just knows nothing about the finer points of woman’s capacity for survival.

Hippocratic Oath
Just read it and realize that BY OATH doctors must cover up for each other’s mistakes.

Honesty
“It is so convenient to be frank and honest.” – Nietzsche
He meant “toward other people,” naturally.

I

Ignorance
Forgivable, except in a responsible job willingly undertaken.

Imagination
“Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as life.” – Joseph Conrad

Intelligence
Super intelligence kindles my love.

Intimacy
There are more imaginary specks of dust casually brushed off gentlemen’s shoulders by women wanting to show intimacy in public than there are real specks of dust desirous of settling on a gentlemen’s shoulders.

Ivy
Good outside the house, bad inside.

J

Jealousy
An uncontrollable passion, the Siamese twin of love.

Jeans
Sometimes I like entire towns or places just because I don’t ever have to get out of my jeans.

Justice
I am a fanatic of the subject. To be just as should be taught to children as soon as they understand a language.

K

Ketchup
If you have to kill the taste of what you are eating, pour it on there.

King-Size
I’m agin it.

Kisses
Don’t waste them. But don’t count them.

L

Lady
What every mother wants her daughter to be.

Las Vegas
I love that town. No clocks. No locks. No restrictions. No heavy hands of the law or your shoulders when you roll those dice.

Laughter
There comes a time when suddenly you realize that laughter is something you remember and that you were the one laughing.

Letters
There is no excuse for not writing letters. My mother used to say: “Don’t tell me you have no time to write to someone who is waiting.”
“There is a quiet place where no one disturbs you. You can visit every day-there you can write. You want to know what the place is? The emperor goes there on foot.”

Letters (of love)
Write them. Otherwise no one will know what wonderful feelings fill you. Even if the king or queen of your heart is unworthy (as you might have been told), write them-it will do you good. Keep copies.

Lily of the Valley
In France, on the first day of May, you bring a bunch of lilies of the valley to your beloved; and you must be the first to do so or it’s not true love.

Life 
Life is not a holiday. Should you approach it thus, you will find holidays aplenty.”

Listen
You must listen all the time or you lost contact.

Love
1) Love for the joy of loving, and not for the offerings of someone else’s heart.
2) The lover’s criterion is: I want you to be happy-but with me.
3) Let him go-if he doesn’t love you anymore.
Let her go-if she doesn’t love you anymore.
4) “Before you love
Learn to run through snow
Leaving no footprints.”
This is Turkish proverb. How clear the picture and how easily understood.

Loyalty
Should be one of the Commandments.

Lukewarm
When this adjective applies to your feelings, stop feeling whatever you are feeling.

M

Makeup
Too bad most of us need it.

Male
He wants to be the prince who rides to the rescue, to protect, to love the fairest of all women, nothing less. The images he has of this ideal woman are just the same the female has of the ideal man.

Manners
Good manners: Know your place.
Bad manners: Meddle.

Marbles
Nothing will ever replace the joy of collection and rolling them.

Marriage
There comes a moment when even the most intelligent woman hears herself say: “I have given you the best years of my life.

Married love (Strategy of) 
Love him. Unconditionally and with devotion.
You chose him. He must be wonderful.
If you chose him for any other reason, your problem, whatever it may be, lies in the realm of which I know nothing.
If your brain, instead of your heart, pilots your emotions, there must be regrets. You cannot trust your brain. You can trust your heart.

Martini
I am deeply suspicious of one who carry martinis to the lunch and dinner table.

Massage
What a luxury! I never have time for it, but I’m for it.

Medical Ethics
They make me sick.

Melancholy
Being in the depths of sadness is just as important an experience as being exuberantly happy.

Melody
All the “sound,” which in today’s popular music and orchestrations is all-important, cannot replace melody. Sounds will come and go. Melodies remain.

Men’s Clothes
Black, midnight blue, dark blue, grey-for suits. Pale blue, pink, white-for shirts. Black, dark blue-for ties. Black for shoes. Only Englishmen can wear brown rough suits and brown heavy-soled shoes and look elegant. Nobody else should try it.

Mixed Drinks
Bad for you, and trouble for the barkeep.

Modesty
It is easier for the unattractive girl to live a life of modesty.

Money
“Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beautifully said.

Mother
More solid than the ground under your feet when you are little, more solid than rock when you need to lean, harder than rock when the learning becomes a danger – when it’s time for you to walk alone

Mother love
Love in its purest and most passionate form.”

Mourning
There is much to be said for the custom of wearing mourning clothes when a tragic loss has left you without strength. The widow’s costume, particularly, inspires respect for sorrow, and the veil not only shadows her face but protects her from the glare of gay life around her. A woman in mourning is treated gently at a time when she needs it most.

Music
How little time we working people have to listen to music, and what a loss this represents to our souls and our nervous systems.

N

Nail Polish
Dark nail polish is vulgar.

Nakedness
Easy for the beautiful, difficult for the ugly.

Nap
People who can nap are lucky. Don’t disturb their napping just because you can’t do the same.

Necking
A dirty pastime.

Negligee
The thing you hopefully buy when you first get married and which you wish you could return when you eyes encounter it crowding your closet while you grab for your workclothes year in and out.

Negligence
Unforgivable.

Neurotic
The more plentiful the work, the less time to be neurotic.

New Year’s Eve
Gaiety, champagne, hope.

Nice and Easy
The nicest way of doing things.

Nightclub
I like the genuine Russian ones in Paris where one can cry over Little Cornflower with sobbing violins for company. Fashionable nightclubs do not attract me.

Normal
We all have quite definite ideas about what is normal. Let’s stick to those ideas and let psychiatry keep its definitions of modern man out of our vocabulary. We need some norms to go by in order to communicate without misunderstanding.

O

Objective
Contrary to popular belief it is possible to be completely objective about one’s own accomplishments and deeds.

Oil
That wonderful substance the other fellow gets rich on.

Optimism
Have it. There is always time to cry later.

Order
I need it. Emotionally and physically.

Oxygen (out of a tank)
Why wait till you are under a tent to breathe it in?

P

Pants
n Texas, when you say that a man is beautiful or handsome, you simply say: “His pants fit him.

Passion
T Tenderness is the repose of passion.” (Joseph Joubert quote)

Patience
Patience can become second nature, if taught early enough. One of those gifts to your children for which you will be hated first and loved later.

Peace
Why does it elude us so frequently, when it is so sincerely desired?

Physical Love
Any society that allows conditions to exist in which the adolescent begins to connect guilt with physical love raises a generation of defectives.

Piano
A home without a piano is waiting for something.

Politeness
Easy to learn. Easy to practice.

Potatoes
I love them. I eat them.

Pouting
I hate it, but men fall for it, so go on and pout.

Presley, Elvis
He arrived on the scene when the young needed a romantic image. He filled the bill, and on top of that he can sing. And he has the sound of today.

Privacy
A man’s good right.

Psychiatry
I bow respectfully to this science.

Q

Quack
Not everyone called a quack is a quack-except quacks and ducks.

Quality
There is nothing better.

Quarrel
There should be a law against it.

Questions
If they are personal, don’t ask them.

Quotations
I love them because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizably wiser than yourself.

R

Radio
A great medium; and I won’t let anyone bury it yet.

Red
It is not very wise to buy a red dress. But I can understand the temptation-simply because men will say: “Who is that girl in the red dress?”

Relax
Commonly used in America, even by children. Outside of America only used when suggested to people who have really done something.

Rhythm
You have to be born with it.

Rich
Most rich people are pretty dull.

Roses
I like them best freshly cut from the garden. The blonde one with the tender, drooping stems small as a rose should smell.

S

Sacrifice
The best measuring cup of your love.

Sadness
Bitter in childhood, sweet in adolescence, tragic in old age.

Sandwich
A wonderful invention for all people like myself who like to eat on the run.

Satin
A deceptive fabric. It looks good enough to eat when it is spread out, but made into a dress it transfers it’s shiny quality to the bearer and spreads hr out. There are some beautifully clinging unshiny satins in France for long evening dresses. Difficult to find ieven in the land of silk.

Saturn
The celestial taskmaster. He won’t let you get away with anything.

Secret
One should think twice before burdening a good friend with a secret.

Seduce
Anyone who was seduced wanted to be seduced.

Self-Discipline
The most useful of all disciplines.

Sentiment
In fear of being sentimental people often shun sentiment. A sad confusion.

Sex
In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact.

Shoes
Shoes are more important that suits and dresses. Good shoes give elegance to your entire appearance. Buy one pair of good shoes instead of three pairs of bad quality.

Sinatra
One of the most gentle of all men I know.

Sleep
Something holy.

Son
Your son isn’t your son for life-if he is normal.

Soup
At certain times soup is the ideal food. Soup not only warms you and is easy to swallow and digest, it also creates the illusion in the back of your mind that Mother is there.

Stupidity
The only defect with which I an lose my patience.

Sugar
The root of great evil. Give children honey instead.

Symbol
To each his own. Symbols are necessary.

T

Tact
There are people who have a natural built-in tact of the heart. If you know one, treat him gently; they are hard to come by.
But tact can be taught; best when we are young, and not by words but by example.

Tease
Don’t.

Teasing
Teach your teen-age daughters not to tease boys into physical desire. You might save their lives.

Tenderness
Tenderness is the greater proof of love than the most passionate of vows.

Times
I can truthfully say that times were always bad as long as I can remember.

Tolerance
teach it to your children. It is most important to the saving of their souls.

Tradition
A treasure and a burden.

Travel
To lose your prejudices you must travel.

True Love
It’s a flower: Trillium erectum. Also called birthroot and bethflower. Medicinal use: astringent.

U

Ugly Duckling
Lucky is the ugly duckling. Keep that in mind and don’t envy the pretty duckling. The dizzy pursuit of pleasure the pretty duckling succumbs to, does not tempt you constantly. You have time to think, to be alone, to be lonely, to read, to make friends, to help other people. You’ll be a happy swan. Just wait and see.

Ultimatum
I can’t stand ultimatums, particularly not in connection with emotional decisions. The person giving an ultimatum in necessarily the stronger one and is taking advantage of this position.

Unmade Bed
A man would rather come home to an unmade bed and a happy woman than to a neatly made bed and an angry woman.

V

Variety
Variety is the spice of life only when it is not for its own sake.

Vegetate
Lots of people do.

Vices
What other people have.

Violets
I like the wild ones and the garden violets that smell strongly. The hothouse ones can just as well leave in the hothouse.

Vodka
It is one of the more healthy drinks in the alcohol field.

Voice
If beautiful voices were sold over the counter prettily wrapped, women would buy them. Too bad they aren’t.

W

War
If you have been in it, don’t talk about it.

Weak
The weak are more likely to make the strong weak than the strong are likely to make the weak strong.

Wealth
The power wealth gives is a dangerous power, especially in the hands of the wealthy.

Weiss Beer
Made for the very thirsty. A pale summer beer. Drink it in a large, wide open glass. You can buy it in stores that German imports.

White Bread
I cringe every time I see a child eating a sandwich made out of American white bread. Give them whole wheat or rye if you love them.

Wilder, Billy
A master builder who knows his tools and uses them expertly to frame out the structure on which he hangs the garlands of his wit and wisdom.

Wishes
The wishes of a mother for her child are few; they can be held in a baby’s hand.

Women
“If all the harm that women have done
Were put in a bundle and rolled into one,
Earth would not hold it,
The sky could not enfold it,
It could not be lighted nor warmed by the sun.” – James Kenneth Stephen
They didn’t “mean to,” Mr. Stephen.

Words
1) Words can bruise and break hearts, and minds as well. There are no black and blue marks, no broken bones to put in plaster casts, and therefore no prison bars for the offender.
2) Lover’s words: “How beautiful you are, now that you love me.”
3) Once lovers have exhausted the simple talk of lovers, describing the glory of it all, and have agreed on the words and feelings on their first meeting, they should stop talking. It is inevitable that words straying outside of this narrow circle will bring disharmony.

X

Xmas
An abbreviation which should be forbidden by the police.

X Ray
In American slang: a ten thousand dollar bill.

Y

Yellow
The gayest of all colours. Yellow walls make a sunny room.

Youth
Youth is optimism and trust.

Z

Zipper
the frustration caused by a stuck zipper is indescribable. Learn to repair zippers. You will save time, nerves, and money.