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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

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

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