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

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

Men are generally more pleased with a widespread than with a great reputation.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it, and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

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.

Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, now that, and changes names as it changes in direction.

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live.

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

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

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

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!

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.

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