Top 50 Monica Lewinsky Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Let’s acknowledge the difference between speaking up with intention and speaking up for attention.”

— Monica Lewinsky

2. “Public shaming is a blood sport that has to stop.”

— Monica Lewinsky

3. “Some people are born great and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

— Monica Lewinsky

4. “As far as our culture of humiliation goes, what we need is a revolution. Public shaming as a blood sport has to stop.”

— Monica Lewinsky

5. “I felt like a piece of trash. I felt dirty and I felt used and I was disappointed.”

— Monica Lewinsky

6. “Changing behaviours begins with evolving beliefs.”

— Monica Lewinsky

7. “I lost my public self, or had it stolenIn a way, it was a form of identity theft.”

— Monica Lewinsky

8. “I voted Republican this year; the Democrats left a bad taste in my mouth.”

— Monica Lewinsky

9. “To mock at a soul in pain is a dreadful thing.”

— Monica Lewinsky

10. “There is a very personal price to public humiliation, and the growth of the Internet has jacked up that price.”

— Monica Lewinsky

11. “It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress.”

— Monica Lewinsky

12. “I’m an incredibly lucky girl. For someone who has made some very foolish mistakes and had some tough lessons to learn very quickly, I am still incredibly lucky.”

— Monica Lewinsky

13. “We talk a lot about our right to freedom of expression, but we need to talk more about our responsibility to freedom of expression. We all want to be heard, but let’s acknowledge the difference between speaking up with intention and speaking up for attention.”

— Monica Lewinsky

14. “And I felt sorry, and I have felt bad about what happened.”

— Monica Lewinsky

15. “I know I will never have an affair with a married man again.”

— Monica Lewinsky

16. “When I think of the person that I thought was Bill Clinton, I think he had genuine remorse. When I think of the person that I now see is 100 percent politician, I think he’s sorry he got caught.”

— Monica Lewinsky

17. “I’ve learned not to put things in my mouth that are bad for me.”

— Monica Lewinsky

18. “And understandably so, that when you’re in legal jeopardy, you really cannot put yourself in a position to open yourself up to the media.”

— Monica Lewinsky

19. “She has slimmed down since the height of impeachment, her thick blow-dried hair as shiny as Russian sable and her creamy cleavage, as historic in its own way as Mount Rushmore, was quite wonderful to behold.”

— Monica Lewinsky

20. “I have spent the past several years working so hard to just move on, and to try and build a life for myself.”

— Monica Lewinsky

21. “I was Patient Zero. The first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the Internet.”

— Monica Lewinsky

22. “You can insist on a different end to the story.”

— Monica Lewinsky

23. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t angry some days. But I really have worked hard to put a lot of the anger and disappointment in the past.”

— Monica Lewinsky

24. “Getting and keeping my immunity became very important to me. For I needed to take care of myself and my family. No one else was worried about me.”

— Monica Lewinsky

25. “Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one. I was Patient Zero.”

— Monica Lewinsky

26. “So I think it’s – what was important to me is that I found that I can’t change the fact that people already have made an opinion about me. But I don’t think that should stop me from trying to correct some of the misperceptions that are out there.”

— Monica Lewinsky

27. “The more shame, the more clicks; the more clicks, the more advertising dollars.”

— Monica Lewinsky

28. “Well, it was actually – I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.”

— Monica Lewinsky

29. “Online we have a compassion deficit.”

— Monica Lewinsky

30. “I was worried about my mom more than I was worried about the president. And then I was worried about the president, and then I was worried about myself.”

— Monica Lewinsky

31. “I did though at least expect him to correct the false statements he made when he was trying to protect the Presidency. Instead, he talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn’t resist the dessert.”

— Monica Lewinsky

32. “I tried to walk a line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely, but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish this goal and that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false.”

— Monica Lewinsky

33. “I chose to not wear a wire and tape people. I chose to not get immunity until – were accepted, whatever – until the independent counsel’s office was comfortable with what I said was the truth.”

— Monica Lewinsky

34. “I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened.”

— Monica Lewinsky

35. “I try to make very careful decisions about what I choose to do, and it’s – I know that unfortunately one of the misperceptions about me, I think, is that I’m sort of a moth to the limelight.”

— Monica Lewinsky

36. “My creativity comes from an unhoned place, if ‘unhoned’ is a word...”

— Monica Lewinsky

37. “I’ve been told by the prosecutors and by my own attorneys I should go to law school. I guess I have a knack for it.”

— Monica Lewinsky

38. “Do you want me to answer that?”

— Monica Lewinsky

39. “I’m probably the only person over 40 who does not want to be 22 again.”

— Monica Lewinsky

40. “I mean, there was a portion, of course, that I think, when I look back now, that there was a portion of what attracted me must have been the awe of him being a powerful man in this environment, not to take away from who he is as a real person.”

— Monica Lewinsky

41. “I mean, I felt terrible. And in the beginning, I mean, I was completely devastated. I mean, can you imagine the kind of guilt that you would feel, and the responsibility?”

— Monica Lewinsky

42. “He could have made it right with the book. But he hasn’t. He is a revisionist of history. He has lied.”

— Monica Lewinsky

43. “He ended it. He just said he didn’t – he – well, what he said was that he didn’t feel it was right, and you know, I mean that’s – because he ended it, he’d probably have to be the one to answer that.”

— Monica Lewinsky

44. “I’m kind of known for something that’s not so great to be known for.”

— Monica Lewinsky

45. “Well, for me, really, I think it was I wanted to try and clear up some of the misperceptions that were out there and fill in some of the historical gaps.”

— Monica Lewinsky

46. “So it was sort of an odd time because I had been hired, but my paperwork hadn’t gone through. So I worked as an intern during the government shutdown, as an intern, but I already had a job.”

— Monica Lewinsky

47. “Building a more compassionate society is going to be a bilateral exercise between individuals and the brands that represent their aspirations, their values and their truths. People make brands. If people are compassionate, brands will be compassionate in return.”

— Monica Lewinsky

48. “I’m going to the White House to get my presidential kneepads.”

— Monica Lewinsky

49. “At one point, I actually, ironically, thought I might go into criminology and work with the FBI.”

— Monica Lewinsky

50. “People who know Clinton knew the guy has a real problem keeping his hands off women.”

— Monica Lewinsky