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

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

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

Men are generally more pleased with a widespread than with a great reputation.

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

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

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.

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

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

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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.

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.