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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

And what will history say of me a thousand years hence?

Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.

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

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