They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.

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.

Most authors seek fame, but I seek for justice—a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess.

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.

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

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

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

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

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

We all have a contract with the public—in us they see themselves, or what they would like to be.

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.

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