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.

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.

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

A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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