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

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

A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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