I don’t like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I’m from New York. I will kill to get what I need.

Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.

I met my husband before I became a star, and he doesn’t care about any of it.

Some people are very good at being ‚stars‘ and it suits them. I’m grudging about it and I find it annoying.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

Overnight stardom can be harmful to your mental health. Yeah. It has ruined a lot of people.

Stupidity and human incompetence are the great evils, not ambition and glory.

If I’d married someone in show business, there’d be too much competition.

In Los Angeles, everyone is a star.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

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

I always like to create things that get attention. It used to be a problem when I wasn’t famous. Now, I can do whatever I want and people have to accept it.

Fame may go by and – so long, I’ve had you.

There’s a long way to fall when you pretend that you’re so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that’s protected by fame or success. It’s scary, and it’s the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

I’m not one of these guys who sits around saying, ‚Gee, I mean, the person had a strange childhood and that’s why he’s doing this horrible thing. Poor Jeffrey Dahmer. He’s just had a bad childhood and that’s why he’s eating people.‘ Wait a second! This person should be removed from the planet.

The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.

I was born in New York in 1904.

If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better.

Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.

The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.

Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

All my stepchildren carried the burden of my fame. Sometimes they would read terrible things about me, and I’d worry about whether it would hurt them. I would tell them: ‚Don’t hide these things from me. I’d rather you ask me these things straight out, and I’ll answer all your questions.‘

I always wanted more – more of everything.

The more players I have, the more difficult choices there are for me, but the better it is for LFC.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

I love Los Angeles, and it’s been very good to me, but if everyone is running around telling the stories, who’s living them? You don’t play characters that are celebrities – you play guys who know what to do when their septic tank’s blocked.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

I am sure as everyone knows that I am not the happiest if I don’t do a good job in qualifying or the race.

I would like to be the chronicler of something that I think is going down the drain very swiftly, and that is small-town, middle-class southern life.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

In Dortmund, they say the derby is more important than the championship. You can feel it around the game.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

New York is definitely ready for the word of God.

Just as I wanted to outdo everyone when I played, I had to outdo everyone when we were out on the town.

I’m not really a Hollywood person. Not that I don’t like L.A., but I’m just a Northern California guy.

I remember coming to New York in 1974 to do a play here called ‚Equis.‘ And I remember the first morning getting up and walking around the streets, and I thought, ‚I’m home.‘ I felt really at peace here.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

I want to make pop cool again, and the only way I can do that is by being ambitious and grand.

There are a lot of good women in New York.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art.

I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon but have the anonymity of Ringo Starr. I didn’t want to be a frontman. I just wanted to be back there and still be a rock and roll star at the same time.

If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances, and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers.

All I wanted to do was write – at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn’t need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

I think sometimes celebrities get so big, they’re not reachable.

The glamour of it all! New York! America!

I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.

We’re constantly striving for success, fame and comfort when all we really need to be happy is someone or some thing to be enthusiastic about.

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.

I’m not trying to take New York by storm. I just want to sneak in there, keep my head down, batten down the hatches and cook.

Fame is fickle, and I know it. It has its compensations but it also has its drawbacks, and I’ve experienced them both.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

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

If the other fellow sells cheaper than you, it is called dumping. ‚Course, if you sell cheaper than him, that’s mass production.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

I loved what I did. I could’ve been secretary of state for ever.

I was born in Africa. I came to California because it’s really where new technologies can be brought to fruition, and I don’t see a viable competitor.

To win a national championship, you’ve got to be a little lucky.

I’ve been talked about by a lot better people than the general public.