Ruth Handler Quotes
101 Ruth Handler Quotes
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I’m a marketing genius – I know it.
Ruth Handler
[On her son Ken – He] Was a difficult sort of child… Lived in a world of his own.
Ruth Handler
The creator of Barbie.
Ruth Handler
[On Twist ‘n’Turn Barbie that gave the doll natural movement by allowing little girls to bend her at the waist and legs, and twist her at the hips – with no visible joints] Because these technological innovations were among the few Barbie features we were able to patent, Jack Ryan would later tell people that he was the inventor of the Barbie doll. You can imagine how annoying this was.
Ruth Handler
[On Barbie in the beginning] The face was deliberately designed to be blank, without a personality, so that the projection of the child’s dream could be on Barbie’s face.
Ruth Handler
[In 1977 on trying her first breast prosthesis before making ‘Nearly Me’] I tried every breast on the market. They were globs. There were no lefts or rights. You wouldn’t think of putting your right shoe on your left foot, would you?
Ruth Handler
[When asked the secret of her success.] I was a marketing genius.
Ruth Handler
[On Barbie going through a series of careers explicitly designed so that] Little girls could have choices about their futures.
Ruth Handler
[On naming Barbie after her daughter Barbara] When we designed the doll I knew I had to name the doll after my daughter who had really inspired the entire project. So we named the doll Barbie.
Ruth Handler
It took like three years to bring the doll out. 1959 was the great year in which we entered this product.
Ruth Handler
[On initial reactions by the Toy Industry to ‘Barbie’] We were very, very disappointed initially at Toy Show…
Ruth Handler
Mothers and children bought those dolls and those clothing so fast that they – the consumer, made the Barbie doll an instant success.
Ruth Handler
It thrills me to walk into an airport and see a child carrying her Barbie doll… It’s a great thrill.
Ruth Handler
I’m humbled by the whole thought that we could have had that much influence and yet I know that we did.
Ruth Handler
One day he came home from school with gorgeous sketches of things to make… And I said you’ve got to make samples of these things. He said ‘I can’t get to the equipment the school isn’t loaded and they don’t have enough equipment.’ So I said ‘What kind of equipment do you need to make this stuff?’ ‘Oh’ he said ‘a saw and a drill press, and a sander I suppose and a few little things like that.’ And I said ‘Where do you get that?’ And he said ‘In Sears.’
Ruth Handler
And one of his designs really took off. It was a hand… [A translucent hand.]
Ruth Handler
When he set up his shop making this equipment he got a fellow in called Harold Matts in to help with making ovens and some of the stuff.
[On a large picture frame order that they secured and had produced] The picture frame order was delivered, and we had some slats of wood left over. Elliot looked at the slats of wood and he said ‘We could make doll house furniture.’
Ruth Handler
I had brought the idea of adult dolls to both to Elliot and our design department. The reason I brought this idea to them is that I had observed my daughter Barbara playing with her friends on the floor by the hour, with adult paper dolls. And they would reflect their dreams of their future through their play with these adult paper dolls.
Ruth Handler
The Barbie concept, in many ways, gives little girls a guide to better living.
Ruth Handler
This was something that I was going to do my way.
Ruth Handler
BONUS - Elliot Handler Quotes and Quotes about Ruth Handler
[To Ruth Handler before launching Barbie] Ruth, no mother is going to buy her daughter a doll with breasts.
Elliot Handler (Ruth Handler’s husband of 60 years)
[To Ruth Handler on her idea of the ‘Barbie’ Doll] Why doesn’t she stick to management and marketing.
Mattel Designers
We work twenty-four hours a day. We worry twenty-four hours a day.
Elliot Handler (Ruth Handler’s husband of 60 years)
[On Ruth] As long as she’s happy, I’m happy.
Elliot Handler (Ruth Handler’s husband of 60 years)
It’s a heartbreaking thing to lose your baby; what you built over the years, and to lose stock. But the important thing was we lost our baby.
Elliot Handler (Ruth Handler’s husband of 60 years)
[On selling Barbie in the beginning] Half of our customers didn’t want to buy the thing.
Elliot Handler (Ruth Handler’s husband of 60 years)
[On whether Barbie would sell in the end] I was wrong, she was right.
Elliot Handler (Ruth Handler’s husband of 60 years)
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