What would make it very difficult to take society back to a repressive time would be technology. The arrival of the Internet.
In the '80s and '90s we started to have economic problems because society became more conservative. So we didn't have the wherewithal for expanding to other areas.
The difference between Marilyn Monroe and the early Pamela Anderson is not that great.
It's very difficult to censor anything anymore.
You really don't create an authoritarian society unless you control the personal choices including the sexual choices of the people.
I do think the reality is there is a general recognition of what I've accomplished.
Being attacked by right-wing Christians did not bother me. Being attacked by liberal feminists did.
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.
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.
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.
I truly believe that age -- if you're healthy -- age is just a number.
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.
Surrounding myself with beautiful women keeps me young.
In many ways Im younger than I was 20 years ago
I'm actually a very moral guy.
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.
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.
Retirement is unthinkable to me. The future is bright and very exciting and I'm looking forward to playing a part in it.
I think the Playboy philosophy is very very connected to the American dream.
I'm never going to grow up. Staying young is what it is all about for me.
For me the magazine was always the heart of what my life was all about and the other half was living the life.
America is just as much to blame as a lot of our enemies.
Life is bittersweet. Inside our heads if we're lucky we're the same kids as we were when we were young.
My life is an open book. With illustrations.
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.
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.
The notion of the single man began in the 1950's. The idea of the bachelor as a separate life was new and obscure.
Picasso had his pink period and his blue period. I am in my blonde period right now.
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.
The Westwood Cemetery is just a few blocks from my home and a number of my very dear friends are buried there.
I am in very good health. I've never felt better.
Could I be in a better place and happier than I am today? I don't think so.
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.
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 am not primarily an entrepreneurial businessman. I'm primarily a playboy philosopher.
Television cable the Internet that's knocked the boundaries down.
You stay in touch with the boy who dreamed impossible dreams.
I guess you could say I'm just a typical Methodist kid at heart.
Everybody marches to a different drummer.
My parents are wonderful people and they instilled in me an idealism for which I'm grateful.
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.
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 don't have dinner parties - I eat my dinner in bed.
The notion that Playboy exploited women because we showed them in beautiful photographs sexually oriented strikes me as rather bizarre.
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.
Life and values do run in cycles.
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.
You know from my point of view I'm the luckiest cat on the planet.
It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They must be doing something right up there in Canada.
I have about 100 pairs of pajamas. I like to see people dressed comfortably.
It's hard to really compare new love and old love.
I remain very much connected to my childhood... I have never been too jaded or too sophisticated.
I think being connected to younger people helps to keep you young and gives you a young attitude.
Living in the moment thinking about the future and staying connected to the past: That's what makes me feel whole.
My folks were farm people from Nebraska so I like home cooking.
I've nailed more women than I could count... at least I think they were women
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.
I've never gotten enough credit!
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.
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.
Sex is the driving force on the planet. We should embrace it not see it as the enemy.
Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.
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.
In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined a sweeter life.
I've had death threats but I've never been fearful for my life. Although I have traveled with security since the '60s.
If you let society and your peers define who you are you're the less for it.
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.
People project their own dreams fantasies and prejudices onto my life. So people are either fans or jealous or disagree. Everybody marches to a different drummer.
I think that sexual oppression and dictatorship go hand in hand.
I tried to make some difference and I think I managed to do that.
Playboy exploits sex the way Sports Illustrated exploits sports.
It's women who have embraced their own sexuality it's why women wear makeup it's why they wear high heels. It's what civilization is all about.
Several girlfriends are easier to handle than one wife.
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.
Playboy was founded on the notion that nice girls like sex too.
The major civilizing force in the world is not religion it is sex.
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.
One of the sad things I think about the younger generation quite frankly is they have less sense of yesterday. And if you don't know who you were you don't really know who you are.
I always think quite frankly that pop culture is a lot more important than a lot of people realize.
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.
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.
The interesting thing is how one guy through living out his own fantasies is living out the fantasies of so many other people.
I think that retirement is the first step towards the grave.
I got married before I found myself. People should find themselves before they get married.
What surprises me about getting older is that I remain so young.
For some people there is no succession plan. They just leave and there's no getting over it.
I remain good friends with most of the major relationships in my life.
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.
Smoking helped put me in touch with the realm of the senses.
Someone once asked 'What's your best pickup line?' I said 'My best pickup line is 'Hi my name is Hugh Hefner.'
My best pick-up line is "My name is Hugh Hefner.
The business end of business has never interested me.
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.
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.
Loneliness doesn't have much to do with where you are.
We're separated by our myths.
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.
There are many roads to Mecca.
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 suggested that sex was not the enemy that violence was the enemy that nice girls like sex.
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.
If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society then the reverse was wrong too.
I guess I'm the most successful man I know. I wouldn't trade places with anybody in the world.
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.
Because of the nature of my life it's difficult for people to recognize that a person can live a full life and maybe an unorthodox life and still be on the side of the angels.