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

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.

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.

A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.

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

Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, now that, and changes names as it changes in direction.

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.

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

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

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

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

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

Reality is always the foe of famous names.