quotations about fame
For however I may in former days as a young man have liked the notice which the being in a great man's train secures one, now that I have a fixed character of my own, obscurity is far the most agreeable.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
diary, July 1837
The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons.
SUSAN SONTAG
The Benefactor
No matter how much fame you have, it’s not something that belongs to you. If I’m famous, that doesn’t belong to me -- that belongs to you. If you can’t remember who I am, I’m no longer famous.
MICHAEL J. FOX
Esquire, Dec. 2007
We only serve as a model for the portrait of our fame.
JEAN COCTEAU
Opium
I didn't create the fame, the fame created me.
LADY GAGA
attributed, Lady Gaga: A Monster Romance
Fame and secrecy are the high and low ends of the same fascination.
DON DELILLO
Underworld
Fame is a bee.
It has a song--
It has a sting--
Ah, too, it has a wing.
EMILY DICKINSON
Fame is a bee
I have way too many commitments. I get pulled in too many directions and I never seem to be able to satisfy anybody. People get turned on by knowing a celebrity, even my friends and family. They feel that there's something exciting about me, but in reality there's no substance to it. People in airports just hold on to me expecting something and it seems that I always come up empty. It's frustrating because I’m trying to please everybody, and ya just can’t do that ... at least I can’t.
TIM ALLEN
Laugh Factory Magazine, 1994
Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright.
H. L. MENCKEN
A Book of Burlesques
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Hyperion