Lapham’s Quarterly

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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