Starring in her first film in 1947, Norma Jean Mortensen, better known, and forever immortalized by her stage name Marilyn Monroe, cemented herself as not only a top-billed actress during her time, but came to be recognized as one of America's greatest, and most popular sex symbols. One who stood as the very epitome of shifting attitudes towards sexuality during the transition between the 1950s and 1960s.

Often typecast as the "dumb blonde", and widely perceived as engendering the use and popularity of such a stereotype through her works "How To Marry A Millionaire" and "Gentleman Prefer Blondes", Monroe to this day, remains an enduring, and lasting fixture in Modern American Pop Culture. With the now deceased starlet's birthday having been celebrated not less than a week ago, here are 5 of the most memorable quotes even the characters Monroe herself portrayed, could never have forgotten:

Although Marilyn Monroe's career and life was tragically met by an unbowed, unprecedented end in 1962, allowing her to dominate The Golden Age of Hollywood for just half-a-decade, her presence, her memory -- forever imprinted on pin-ups, mugs, and movie-posters -- remains, permanently tattooed onto conscience of pop culture. Serving as a reminder to all those entranced, taken by her ditsy, but raptors presence, that despite how those around us will seek to prescribe us an identity due to our appearence, or monetary benefits, there is a part of us -- one the lights cannot touch and the bills cannot bury no matter how far and high they stack -- that cannot be bought or defined. By none other than ourselves.