Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth. Suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.

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

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.

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

Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.

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.

How sweet it is to have people point and say, “There he is.”

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!

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

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.

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. 

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

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.