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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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