We all have a contract with the public—in us they see themselves, or what they would like to be.
—Clark Gable, 1935Quotes
If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.
—Martial, c. 86There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891I 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.
—Al Capone, 1929He who treats another human being as divine thereby assigns to himself the relative status of a child or an animal.
—E. R. Dodds, 1951I won’t be happy till I’m as famous as God.
—Madonna, c. 1985What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
—Voltaire, 1723Being 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.
—Sammy Davis Jr., 1965How sweet it is to have people point and say, “There he is.”
—Persius, c. 60And what will history say of me a thousand years hence?
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 BCThey are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.
—Martin Luther, c. 1530Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it, and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, c. 1790Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.
—Sarah Bernhardt, 1904