Top 40 Helen Gurley Brown Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The only thing that separates successful people from the ones who aren’t is the willingness to work very, very hard.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

2. “Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

3. “Good posture is the one most important thing anybody can do now to look better.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

4. “Love doesn’t drop on you unexpectedly; you have to give off signals, sort of like an amateur radio operator.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

5. “Don’t use men to get what you want in life. Get it yourself.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

6. “Feed the alligators and you get bigger alligators.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

7. “I care. I care a lot. I think of Cosmopolitan all day, and I run scared. So it’s a combination of fright, caring and anxiety.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

8. “Feeling insecure is good for you. It forces you to do something better, drives you to use all your talents.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

9. “Work with the raw material you have, namely you, and never let up.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

10. “You can have your titular recognition. I’ll take the money and the power.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

11. “Every morning when I’m thrashing around on the floor doing my solid hour of heavy exercises I’m not really doing that for anyone but myself. It makes me feel good.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

12. “The prerequisite for making love is to like someone enormously.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

13. “Do what’s in front of you as well as possible. Keep going until you realize what you’re best at.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

14. “If you’re a little mouseburger, come with me. I was a mouseburger and I will help you. You’re so much more wonderful than you think. Cosmopolitan is shot full of this stuff although outsiders don’t realize it. It is, in its way, an inspiration magazine.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

15. “Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

16. “I guess I’m a survivor. There are many of us survivors and any successful woman of my age has somewhat of that in her.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

17. “You know you can’t hope yourself a better life – you must take yourself there.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

18. “People never get tired of looking at beautiful pictures of gorgeous girls.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

19. “A man likes to sleep with a brainy girl. She’s a challenge. If he makes good with her, he figures he must be good himself.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

20. “I think a single woman’s biggest problem is coping with the people who are trying to marry her off!”

— Helen Gurley Brown

21. “I think you keep two sets of books. In one set, you record the truth – how well you are really doing. This is the secret set – just for you and loved ones. In the other set are more modest entries and statements, and these are for public consumption!”

— Helen Gurley Brown

22. “Never throw anything good away – real wool, pure silk. Put it away and wait for it to come back.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

23. “Get up and do it if it needs to be done, even if you hate it!”

— Helen Gurley Brown

24. “The happiest people I know are not those who are the most beautiful, rich or famous. The happiest people I see are simply those who stay cheerful and try to cheer up others while getting through their own bad stuff.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

25. “There are not that many people who know how to edit. It’s a funny tiny little obscure talent but it’s very special. You have to have the feeling of popular taste.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

26. “Laugh a little when the joke’s on you.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

27. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing everyone a disservice by perpetuating the idea that beautiful is better than plain, because having done everything just about that you can do, sparing no expense, and not effort, to become better looking, I know that only so much can be done.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

28. “When you meet a man, don’t you always idly wonder what he’d be like in bed? I do.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

29. “The only reason a man doesn’t call is that he doesn’t want to.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

30. “Two warm bodies and one cold bottle of champagne will produce something more wonderful than would happen without the champagne.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

31. “I just had the idea that all the covergirls should be gorgeous, and not just interesting, not beautiful in an offbeat or exotic way, just plain yummy gorgeous.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

32. “We are told to value ourselves without feedback, but if nobody is making a pass at you or trying to take you to Bermuda, how are you supposed to feel? Confident?”

— Helen Gurley Brown

33. “I think I’m a fairly average person, I think I have only a medium IQ. I didn’t go to college, obviously.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

34. “Charm is the next best asset after looks and brains – and can almost make up for looks.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

35. “I guess anyone with a beautiful body, man or woman, loves to be looked at, but to admit such a thing is a little rough at times. That’s why it’s hard to get people to pose.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

36. “It’s unrealistic to think you can only have one good product. People are not that poor. They can buy what they want.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

37. “If you do the best you can, no matter how bad the situation, you probably are going to come out okay.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

38. “Trying to describe a good marriage is like trying to describe your adrenal glands. You know they’re in there functioning but you don’t really understand how they work.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

39. “Don’t do small stuff early in your energy cycle or you’ll blow your ‘golden hours,’ but occasionally you have to do the ‘possible’ to develop the momentum for the killer task.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

40. “Talkers expand like bread dough.”

— Helen Gurley Brown