There lurks in every human heart a desire of distinction which inclines every man first to hope and then to believe that nature has given him something peculiar to himself. 

I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

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

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

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

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.

Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth. Suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.

He who treats another human being as divine thereby assigns to himself the relative status of a child or an animal.

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.

All people have the common desire to be elevated in honor, but all people have something still more elevated in themselves without knowing 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.

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!