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

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

What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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

Happy is the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!

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