I believe in sunshine and lollipops and manicures and jolly fun time..

May 18, 2012 9:05 PM

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles." - attributed to Audrey Hepburn, but I'm kind of obsessed with how modernly wooey-gooey fabricated it sounds and wanting to know exactly where it came from. I'm happy to be proved wrong OR right, I just have to know. Does anyone know where this quote actually comes from?

Even just to know that The Exalted One said it in Life Magazine in 1958 would ease my mind. Please help.

posted by bleep to Grab Bag (20 answers total)

I have only read it attributed to Audrey Hepburn, but it seems unreal because it sounds like the caption for 85% of pictures on Pinterest.
posted by ichomp at 9:17 PM on May 18, 2012 [10 favorites]

I have heard it attributed to Marilyn Monroe multiple times as well.
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 9:26 PM on May 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Was "calorie burning" even a concept that people were aware of, and named, in the 50's? I feel like it came about in the 80's, but not sure.
posted by bearette at 9:50 PM on May 18, 2012

Self Link: Patrick Henry Said What?: Or, How to Fact-Check an Internet "Quote"

The Hepburn quote is fake.
posted by LarryC at 9:57 PM on May 18, 2012 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: How do you know it's a fake, LarryC other than it definitely sounds fake and cloyingly boring? Wikiquotes and GoogleBooks didn't return anything :(
posted by bleep at 10:13 PM on May 18, 2012

This sounds very much like something I've heard in an unremarkable romantic comedy from years ago. Almost certainly its from a film, but I can't remember which. Probably not "Reservoir Dogs", though.
posted by Alonzo T. Calm at 10:18 PM on May 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

This place, Audrey Hepburn quotes, definitely attributes the quote to her. The link was at the bottom of her wikipedia page.
posted by annsunny at 10:47 PM on May 18, 2012

Response by poster: If audreyhepburnquotes.net, a domain name anyone could have bought and set up, was an actual source, they would have listed where they got the quote from.
posted by bleep at 10:51 PM on May 18, 2012 [8 favorites]

This sounds very much like something I've heard in an unremarkable romantic comedy from years ago.

It sounds a lot like the scene from Bull Durham.
posted by fleacircus at 11:06 PM on May 18, 2012

Best answer: A variant is here:

"I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and... I believe in miracles."

Your instincts are good, bleep. It's probably fake or at least a pastiche. Thing is, with someone like Hepburn, who has been revered and idolized for a long time, this quote would be in every book about her going back decades, especially since her death in 1993. It's not. It only very rarely appears in books and then only in the last couple of years.

I searched in public and private fulltext databases of books, newspapers, and the web.

It only first appears on the net in force in 2005, and then in truncated or modified versions.

A weak lead came up in Proquest Historical newspapers, where I turned up a 2011 article by Scott Chey in the "Journal of Business" about a business named "Pink."

Shaw says the business's name was inspired by a well-known quote from actress Audrey Hepburn, who said, "I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner ... I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles." [...] She says she registered the business name back in 1993 after Hepburn died of breast cancer because she had hoped at the time eventually to own a business named Pink.

So, perhaps the quote was floating around in 1993? Perhaps this person's memory is wrong? Or they're making it up to stake a claim?

The line "Happy girls are the prettiest girls" (not the rest) comes up in a 2002 article from the Palm Beach Post which mentions www.shesheme.com. The site still uses the slogan. Perhaps you could ask them about it?
posted by Mo Nickels at 11:08 PM on May 18, 2012 [3 favorites]

Honestly that quote sounds more like Diana Vreeland than Audrey Hepburn. Most of the authentic Hepburn quotes are either quips reflecting her bemused attitude toward her very successful career as a film actress or else quiet aphorisms about the importance of charity. She wasn't given to wild flights of fancy in her speech.

She did often quote the little speech beginning "For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people..." But she never claimed the words as her own and in fact made a point of crediting the true author, Sam Levenson.

My favorite Hepburn quote is repeated on snopes.com: "If I had [beauty secrets], I'd make a fortune. But I know what helps-- health, lots of sleep, lots of fresh air, and a lot of help from Estee Lauder."
posted by La Cieca at 11:38 PM on May 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

This sounds like a job for the Quote Investigator.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 2:25 AM on May 19, 2012 [3 favorites]

There was something similar in a recent "Who's That Girl" episode where Jess dresses down somebody by defending her quirkiness.
posted by myselfasme at 7:03 AM on May 19, 2012

Best answer: I worked with Miss Hepburn on a PBS series about gardens and I sincerely doubt she ever said anything like this.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:44 AM on May 19, 2012 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Although "calorie burning" was definitely a concept in the 1950s and onward, it isn't something Audrey Hepburn would ever have worried about. She had trouble keeping weight on, perhaps because she just had a speedy metabolism, perhaps because of lasting effects from the malnutrition she experienced as a child in Occupied Belgium during World War II. This is well-documented in everything written about her.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:01 AM on May 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

Marilyn Monroe also often seems to be the source of a lot of quotes that I find.....questionable. I would really love for there to be a snopes for quotes.
posted by triggerfinger at 6:47 PM on May 19, 2012

Whether or not the idea goes further back, the phrase 'calorie burner'/'calorie burning' seems to be a recent one.

Use of the phrase did take off within Hepburn's lifetime, so this isn't conclusive proof that the quote is fabricated. But it supports bearette's intuition that it's an awfully 1980s thing to say.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:02 AM on May 20, 2012

Best answer: How do you know it's a fake, LarryC other than it definitely sounds fake and cloyingly boring? Wikiquotes and GoogleBooks didn't return anything :(

That is how I know it is fake.

If Hepburn had something so quotable during her life, it would have been quoted. At least a part of the quote would turn up in one of the many books about Hepburn, and movies, and Hollywood. That fact that it does not is conclusive proof that she never said it.
posted by LarryC at 1:28 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: This works for me. Thanks for your help putting this personal obsession to bed everyone. Until next time!
posted by bleep at 2:16 PM on May 20, 2012

She had trouble keeping weight on, perhaps because she just had a speedy metabolism, perhaps because of lasting effects from the malnutrition she experienced as a child in Occupied Belgium during World War II. This is well-documented in everything written about her.

Sidhedevil, she's also well-documented as struggling with anorexia her whole life, so I'm not sure I'd take those stories about "having trouble keeping weight on" without a huge grain of salt.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:23 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]