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.

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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