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.

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!

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.

There lurks in every human heart a desire of distinction which inclines every man first to hope and then to believe that nature has given him something peculiar to himself. 

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

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

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

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.

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