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

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

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

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

If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.

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

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.

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.

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

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.

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. 

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

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