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

I don’t call up the press and say, ‚Look at me!‘

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Fame hit me like a ton of bricks.

I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense… I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.

If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? – not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

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.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

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

It’s considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don’t see why that’s considered a normal thing.

I don’t have people following me around, like bodyguards. I don’t know how people live like that. Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don’t know. But it seems a little crazy to me. I don’t think you need all that stuff.

I lost some of my friends because I got so famous, people who just assumed that I would be different now. I felt like everyone hated me. That is the most unhappy time of my life.

Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it’s mad that people like me are listened to – you know, rap stars and movie stars.

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

I would never say I was an icon, but so many people have said I am, so I suppose I am. I mean, I can’t not be what everyone says I am. But I don’t feel like an icon.

I definitely feel closer to the feminine side of the human being than I do the male – or the American idea of what a male is supposed to be. Just watch a beer commercial and you’ll see what I mean.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

The fame isn’t important to me. It’s a blessing to have. Having so many people that support me, that love me and listen to my music, is beautiful.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground.

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly.

Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you.

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

If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.

I seen a lot of artists be hot for a minute, and then that’s it, and somebody else come in.

I’m not a star. I don’t feel I’m so great. So how can I make you feel great just because you’ve got my signature on a piece of paper?

If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I’m still waiting, it’s all been to seduce women basically.

The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.

I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don’t understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music.

People want to act like they know celebrities. They want to see pictures. They want to know where you’re going. They want to hear you talk about your family.

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

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

At the end of the day, women are a distraction. Whether you realize it or not.

When you’re a pop star, it’s a little conservative; you always have to stay in a box. You have fans that are five and fans that are 65; there are so many people wanting so many things.

The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.

You can’t reverse fame. You can lose all the money, but you’ll never lose people knowing you.

No one wants to see curvy women.

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.

I’m not in it for fame. I’ve been famous in the streets already.

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

When people say ‚marriage‘ to me… It’s always a means to an end. Everyone’s so in a rush to define the relationship.

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.

There was my name up in lights. I said, ‚God, somebody’s made a mistake.‘ But there it was, in lights. And I sat there and said, ‚Remember, you’re not a star.‘ Yet there it was up in lights.

A man has a tendency to accept you the way you are, while most women immediately start to pick flaws and want to change you.

I wanted to use my fame and this face that everyone knows so well to help uplift and inspire people around the world.

In the public eye, girls and women with strong perspectives are hated. If you’re a girl with an opinion, people just hate you. There are still people who are afraid of successful women, and that’s so lame.

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.

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

I was probably the first footballer ever to have a pop-star profile, and my agent was right when he said we could put my name on stair rods and sell them to people in bungalows.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it’s not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

I’ve never had that much trouble with the paparazzi, but I don’t run the same circles that a lot of these people that do get hounded by the paparazzi.

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

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.

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.