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.

I actually do think you’re seeing this trend towards organizations just caring more about their brand and engaging. And so I think Home Depot will want to humanize itself. I think that’s a lot of why companies are starting blogs, are just giving more insight into what’s going on with them.

I’m the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It’s a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don’t like – and the fact that it’s not reversible.

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

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

I feel like everything we do comes down to how it looks. Even no branding is branding. For example, you had no face or image to put to my music at first. That was branding.

I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you’ve got people just streaming up the mountain – well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really.

Fame doesn’t fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

Fame is like caviar, you know – it’s good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal.

Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn’t have to advertise it.

You don’t know when you’re being watched. That’s one of the weird things about celebrity. It’s my least favorite part of acting, celebrity.

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

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?

A lot of advertising has gotten worse. I think it’s kind of lost its nerve, to be honest with you. I feel like the advertising of the ’60s, they were nervier. You know why? Because there was less at stake.

I do not have a merchandise line. I don’t sell knives or apparel. Though I have been approached to endorse various products from liquor to airlines to automobiles to pharmaceuticals dozens of times, I have managed to resist the temptation.

All I can do is try to create my own brand and have people appreciate me for that.

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

What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can’t I just be an ordinary woman?

We all want to be famous people, and the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.

Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.

People think I’m a celebrity. I’m not a celebrity.

All an agent is going to do is buy things for a player, damage his eligibility, and make the player dependent on them.

The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang.

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.

Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

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

See, ‚A Time to Kill‘ was the one I got famous off of. Big ka-boom, over one weekend. After that, I did films that I really wanted to do.

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.

Fame hit me like a ton of bricks.

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

Every successful businessman will have experienced set-backs and failures – they’re lying if they say they haven’t. Virgin has had some tremendously successful businesses and some that have not quite worked out. Virgin Cola springs to mind – the product wasn’t distinct enough from Coca-Cola.

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.

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.

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.

Only the public can make a star. It’s the studios who try to make a system out of it.

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.

Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There’s a lot of things that come with fame – it’s what people in the limelight have to do.

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

A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I’m learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, ‚I can’t go to Kmart. I can’t take my kids to the haunted house.‘

I think that when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated.

Getting recognized is insane. It just blows my mind. Like, someone who you don’t know at all can just be like, ‚Oh my God – are you Billie?‘

There’s Madeleine, and then there’s ‚Madeleine Albright‘. And I sometimes kind of think, who is this person? Once you become ‚Madeleine Albright‘ it doesn’t go away.

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

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

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.

I have to admit I’ve found myself doing the same things that a lot of other rock stars do or are forced to do. Which is not being able to respond to mail, not being able to keep up on current music, and I’m pretty much locked away a lot. The outside world is pretty foreign to me.

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

If you were to ask me to choose between democratic values and wealth, power, prosperity and fame, I will very easily and without any doubt choose democratic values.

‚Fame‘ exhausts me.

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

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

I’m over being a pop star. I don’t wanna be a hot girl. I wanna be iconic. And I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. I feel like I’m highly respected, which is more important than any award or any amount of records. And I feel like there comes a point when being a pop star is not enough.

I can be accused of trying to be commercial sometimes.

To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one’s landlady.

Competitions are a business, first and foremost.

In England, when an athlete gets to the top, we do our best to destroy him.

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.