531 Fame Quotes

The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist. I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.

In my life, I don't need to have my face plastered everywhere. It's not really something I want.

From the moment I leave my house or my hotel room, the public owns me. The public made Alice Cooper and I can't imagine ever turning my back on my fans.

If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.

In these days a man is nobody unless his biography is kept so far posted up that it may be ready for the national breakfast-table on the morning after his demise.

They laughed at Edison and Einstein, but somehow I still feel uncomfortable when they laugh at me.

Today everyone is a star - they're all billed as 'starring' or 'also starring'. In my day, we earned that recognition.

Sometimes girls write me. One girl in Yugoslavia sent me a whole slew of love letters. I don't know how she got my address. She was in a crowd watching me play. She says when I left there the stars fell out of the sky over Yugoslavia, or something like that.

I think with anybody who's doing well in the public eye or whatever, there's always gonna be a shift because people don't wanna see somebody happy all the time. And they're gonna try to take shots at people.

The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.

You just wait. I'm going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.

This is Davey. I'm not special.

I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir.

Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.

He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.

Let the famous not denounce fame. Far from being empty and meaningless, it fills those it touches with divine power.

In the end all books are written for your friends. The problem after writing One Hundred Years of Solitude was that now I no longer know whom of the millions of readers I am writing for; this upsets and inhibits me. It's like a million eyes are looking at you and you don't really know what they think.

I would like for my books to have been recognized posthumously, at least in capitalist countries, where they turn you into a kind of merchandise.

I was asked the other day if I would be interested in the Nobel Prize, but I think that for me it would be an absolute catastrophe. I would certainly be interested in deserving it, but to receive it would be terrible. It would just complicate even more the problems of fame. The only thing I really regret in life is not having a daughter.

Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like: it is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

The highest form of vanity is love of fame.

My dad was undeniably famous when I was a kid - he was on Wogan and Clive James and the radio every week, but as far as I was concerned he wasn't famous enough. My best friend was Ben Brooke-Taylor. His dad Tim was in The Goodies - that was famous.

To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.

Celebrities are invariably celebrity-mad, just as liars always believe liars.

People in my situation get to read about themselves whether they want to or not. It's generally wrong. Or oversimplified - which is sometimes useful.

Stardom can be a gilded slavery.

Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does.

The news of the discovery spread fast all over the country, and inquisitive enquiries mingled with congratulations from this moment became the daily programme.

Mommy, why does daddy cuss the TV and call it Howard?

Writers are idolized not because they love their fellow men, which is never a recommendation and in extreme instances leads to crucifixion, but because their self-love is in tune with current fears and desires, and in giving it expression they are speaking for an inarticulate multitude.

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

[I'm] an extremely private dude and all this is happening so damn quick. I really haven't had any time to rationalize it. But it's nothing that I'm going to let freak me out or take control of me or my thoughts or my real life.

I love acting. Oh, God, I love it. But all this fame and all this bullshit attention. I'm not supernatural. I've done nothing extremely special to deserve the position. It happens every couple of years, and it's happened to hundreds of people before me.

Most of the time you don't even know they're there. Now, that's the scary thing. It's really strange and invading, but I'm still working it all out. I try to not let it bother me. And if I want to swim naked in my pool, I'm still going to do it. I certainly don't want to feel that I have to change everything in my life that I do to cater to them. I just won't let it happen.

In this industry, interest in you comes in waves, it's so tidal. And so I don't really want to jump on the first wave that comes along.

He had often noticed that six months' oblivion amounts to newspaper-death, and that resurrection is rare. Nothing is easier, if a man wants it, than rest, profound as the grave.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault.

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: 'His sins were scarlet, But his books were read'.

Liberace: What do we have for dinner?

The hardest thing about being James Brown is I have to live. I don't have no down time.

But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.

There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.

The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.

Never pay any attention to what critics say:Remember, a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic!

I hate the man who builds his name On ruins of another's fame. Thus prudes, by characters o'erthrown, Imagine that they raise their own. Thus Scribblers, covetous of praise, Think slander can transplant the bays.

They're cheering a young lad, the champion playboy of the Western World.

I guess there have been times when I was on the brink of being bankable. But that's all so weird. All these weird lists - top five star, top 10, 'Let's get this guy because he's bankable.' I don't think about that. You're on the list two weeks and then ' poof - you're gone. It never jarred me that I wasn't on the list. If I'm considered bankable this week, that's great. Next week I'll be totally off. I'm used to that. (2004)

[Being in France] was amazing at first, because I didn't speak the language. I loved that, because I didn't have to talk. It was great just to be out among people and not have the responsibility to say anything. I wasn't thrown into the spotlight to be the novelty or to entertain. (2004)

If there's anything I really want, it's privacy. Maybe I should do what Brando did 30 years ago - buy an island. Maybe take my girl and some friends and just go there and sleep. And read, and swim and think clear thoughts. Because you really can't do that here. You can't be normal: you can't just hang out and have a cup of coffee and pick your nose. (1999)

I enjoyed acting and I loved the process, but at the same time I hated the celebrity that came with it even though I know it's part of the game and the recognition you need to have people come see your movies. I just couldn't get my head into the place where I could just enjoy the attention and deal with it on that level instead of feeling stalked and paranoid about it. I'm a lot cooler about it now. (2004)

The thing that fascinates me is: who cares what an actor thinks? [on his reluctance to give interviews] (2004)

when we're in a public place, like at some opening or a premiere, I don't mind the press. It's the nature of the beast. But when you're shopping for Christmas presents for your kids, I just don't understand the fascination. (2004)

I haven't changed my thinking about those guys very much! Even in France, I still have them staking me out and watching our house in the countryside. I don't see the point of guys earning their living by taking photos of me and Vanessa walking our kids to a playground. But I'm trying not to let myself get worked up about it anymore. That just makes them even more money and they know that so some of them try to provoke you that way. So I've stopped playing into their hands. I'm just trying to be a boring family guy so there's no value to taking my photo anymore. (2004)

What's very confusing for them is why there are people who want to take Mommy and Daddy's photograph. So we have a little game where we hide our face in Daddy's shoulder. When we get in the car and we've passed all the photographers, then we can bring our face out. They don't need to be exposed to the absurdity of that frenzy. Lily-Rose asks, 'Why do they want to take your picture?' My answer is always the same: 'I don't know.' Because I don't. (2004)

I could do a Bruce Willis thing and make a record now, but it would just milk my teen-boy, pop-idol image. I'd rather do nothing than do that. (1988)

I'm shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I've done everything I can to avoid it.

Awards are not as important to me as when I meet a 10-year-old kid who says, 'I love Captain Jack Sparrow.'

Fame to be sweet must resound in the ears of those we love, in the atmosphere of the land that will guard our ashes. Fame should hover over our tomb to warm with its heat the chill of death, so that we may not be completely reduced to nothingness, that something of us may survive.

I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.

If I'm such a legend, then why am I so lonely? Let me tell you, legends are all very well if you've got somebody around who loves you.

In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.

It's lonely and cold on the top... lonely and cold.

I still think I am the greatest.

'The one thing I fear for [Kanye] the most is if you keep talking about being the greatest, people eventually are going to want to watch you fail.' - John Mayer (From MTV.com)

Death will be a great relief. No more interviews.

The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

When I started out, I didn't have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.

I don't think I could see myself with someone who's famous. I don't like the lifestyle and everything it stands for. Too superficial. That attention is too much. For me to go home and be surrounded by that sounds like a fucking nightmare. But a musician or someone who's into music is different.

Don't come into the music industry. It's almost inevitable that you'll psychologically be quite screwed up. Fame isn't a natural, human, behavioural thing. You get alienated. You're not really surrounded by truth.

It's incredibly flattering, and really ironic. I grew up quoting Fletch and Raising Arizona, and now people quote the flicks I've done back to me. Weird, but nice.

When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything 'great,' I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.

Familiarity with any great thing removes our awe of it. The great general is only terrible to the enemy; the great poet is frequently scolded by his wife; the children of the great statesman clamber about his knees with perfect trust and impunity; the great actor who is called before the curtain by admiring audiences is often waylaid at the stage door by his creditors.

For Halloween, I want to be Lenny Bruce, I want them to hate me, so you can love me on the sly.

I don't want, no I really don't want To be John Lennon or Leonard Cohen I just want to be my Dad.

When his friends, says Czerny, speak to him of his youthful renown, he replies: 'Ah, nonsense! I have never thought of writing for renown and glory. What I have in my heart must out; that is why I write.'

How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

Few men have been admired by their own households.

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.

Immortality is the best recollection one leaves.

A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Such work as mine is not done twice in a century. I saved the Revolution as it lay dying, I have cleansed it of its crimes and have held it up to the people shining with fame. I inspired France and Europe with new ideas which will never be forgotten.

God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then-who knows?-rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too.

I'm not picking up dog shit. I'm a rock star.

Sometimes I'm scared of being Ozzy Osbourne. But it could have been worse. I could have been Sting.

I'm the guy kids love and parents hate. The guy mothers love to hate. When you've achieved that, you've achieved a goal.

Mi madre un dia me dijo: 'Si te haces soldado, seras General; si te haces monje, terminaras como el Papa.' En cambio, me hice pintor y ahora soy Picasso.

How does a woman of this magnitude and range slip away from our national consciousness? She has not exactly disappeared. Rather, as one reader of an earlier draft of this book shrewdly put it, she has been 'hidden in plain sight,' obscured beneath a caricature that belies her complexity and her achievement. ... In the years after World War II, Buck's literary reputation shrunk to the vanishing point. She stood on the wrong side of virtually every line drawn by those who constructed the lists of required reading in the 1950s and 1960s.

To become a celebrity is to become a brand name. There is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth. Ivory is the soap that floats; Rice Krispies the breakfast cereal that goes snap-crackle-pop; Philip Roth the Jew who masturbates with a piece of liver.