Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

How sweet it is to have people point and say, “There he is.”

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.

Happy is the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!

When I do a show, the whole show revolves around me, and if I don’t show up, they can just forget it.

Now there is fame! Of all—hunger, misery, the incomprehension by the public—fame is by far the worst. It is the castigation by God of the artist. It is sad. It is true.

What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.

I won’t be happy till I’m as famous as God.

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.

I am sick and tired of publicity. I want no more of it. It puts me in a bad light. I just want to be forgotten.

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.