Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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