I hate being called an ‚icon.‘ I just don’t like it. That’s all there is to it.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

I don’t like L.A. It’s just not fun. I don’t know why, but I just don’t get it. You have to drive to get everywhere, and when it rains everybody freaks out.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

As human beings, we are all not conducting just one narrative but many narratives all at the same time.

Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘

I didn’t come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to me. A lot of people wish they could say the things I say. Everyone out here is so phony, it’s sickening.

Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‚the book lady.‘ The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the ‚book lady‘ title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I’ve done something good with my life and with my success.

By its birth, and for all time, Christianity is pledged to the Cross and dominated by the sign of the Cross. It cannot remain its own self except by identifying itself ever more intensely with the essence of the Cross.

The answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it’s beyond that. It is the very sense of being, or presence, that is there when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment are, at the deepest level, one.

I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.

I just dress like… I’m an old black man. Sorry! Like I’m an old Jewish black man. I just dress like it’s still the ’50s.

All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.

I don’t know who I would have been if I never watched MotoGP.

Really, I don’t like roller coasters.

Bob Marley isn’t my name. I don’t even know my name yet.

I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

I have always hated bowling, and I don’t mind admitting it.

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‚blackness‘ than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong.

I feel Anglo-American.

That is what fame is, isn’t it? To get the world to fall in love with you.

Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

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 experience, but that’s not where I live.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

At twelve I looked like a girl of seventeen. My body was developed and shapely. I still wore the blue dress and the blouse the orphanage provided. They made me look like an overgrown lummox.

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

Some artists are working to buy the mansion or whatever the element of fame must bear, but I spend all my money on my show.

But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is.

How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting.

There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.

Sometimes I’m fascinated with how famous my work could be while I’m not so famous.

I don’t think I could think of a single thing that’s more isolating than being famous.

I never wanted to be Marilyn – it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

Funk, I don’t think I have anything to do with funk. I’ve never considered myself funky.

I was a smart kid, but I hated school.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.

I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.

I like to hide behind the characters I play. Despite the public perception, I am a very private person who has a hard time with the fame thing.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

I’m not talent. Not considered ‚talent‘ by Lifetime. I’d like to say I’m their savior, but that would be cocky.

With my childhood, it’s a wonder I’m not psychotic. I was the little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in the all-white school. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends.

I hate the rock music tradition. I can’t bear it!

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.

No, I’m not a French designer either. I’m from nowhere. I’m a European, old European is all I am.

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.