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

I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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

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.

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