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

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 mind saying, you know, that I don’t take a salary from the church, and God has blessed me with more money than I could imagine from my books.

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

If I hadn’t given my money away, I’d have had more than anyone else on the planet.

Money is usually attracted, not pursued.

The richest people in the world look for and build networks; everyone else looks for work.

I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted.

You have to be very rich or very poor to live without a trade.

To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.

I have zero desire, just so you know, to be in the limelight. I don’t think it’s good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor. You’re not going to see me giving my opinions in the public arena, until I start selling my book. I’m going to emerge then submerge.

I’m always secretly the most pleased when a show just really, really looks good and when my camera guys are really happy with the images they got.

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

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.

When the shriveled skin of the ordinary is stuffed out with meaning, it satisfies the senses amazingly.

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.

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

We are all pleased when our names are pronounced and spelled correctly.

Money doesn’t make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

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.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

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.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.

I just hope people don’t get sick of us. I’m sick of us and I’m in Destiny’s Child.

If a star or studio chief or any other great movie personages find themselves sitting among a lot of nobodies, they get frightened – as if somebody was trying to demote them.

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

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

Actually, to be an effective person politically in this country, I think you have to be thirty or over, and also you have to be rich, well-placed, you have to be close to power. And I don’t think that young people, because they look young, can do much, as I think they are counterproductive.

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

If you’ve lost your spirit, even living in the richest country in the world can’t help you become rich.

Before I was famous, when I was just working in Gilbert’s Lodge, everything was moving in slow motion.

Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.

What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

The god of love lives in a state of need. It is a need. It is an urge. It is a homeostatic imbalance. Like hunger and thirst, it’s almost impossible to stamp out.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

It’s certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

Fame is ultimately about the cycles of desire and how to do away with them or manage them well.

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

Successful people make money. It’s not that people who make money become successful, but that successful people attract money. They bring success to what they do.

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.

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

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

I was an overnight sensation.

Don’t matter how much money you got, there’s only two kinds of people: there’s saved people and there’s lost people.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?

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

The natural desire of good men is knowledge.

The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.