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

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

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

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

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.

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

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. 

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

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

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

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.

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