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.

Most authors seek fame, but I seek for justice—a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess.

If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.

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

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

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

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

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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

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

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.

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