All people have the common desire to be elevated in honor, but all people have something still more elevated in themselves without knowing it.

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. 

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.”

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.

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

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.

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

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.

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.

When I do a show, the whole show revolves around me, and if I don’t show up, they can just forget it.

Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.