All people have the common desire to be elevated in honor, but all people have something still more elevated in themselves without knowing it.

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.

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

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

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

Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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.

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.

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.

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

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.