A system and method for navigating a dialog hierarchy from a voice user interface (VUI) using speech bookmarks. The method can detect a user spoken command for bookmarking a location within a dialog hierarchy of a voice response system. A user spoken bookmark can be received, which is added to a personalized bookmark grammar that is associated with a user who spoke the bookmark name. A database record can be used to associate the new bookmark name with a location within the dialog hierarchy. During a subsequent interaction between the user and the voice response system, the user can speak the bookmark name, which results in a match being detected between the spoken phrase and the personalized bookmark grammar. The voice response system can then navigate to the location within bookmark hierarchy that is associated with the speech bookmark.