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

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.

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.

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.

The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition.

I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.

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

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.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, ‚Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.‘

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

Joanne‘ is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

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

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

And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God… They’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.

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.

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

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

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.

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

You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.

These critics with the illusions they’ve created about artists – it’s like idol worship. They only like people when they’re on their way up… I cannot be on the way up again.

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.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

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.

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

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

The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.

The ads all call me fearless, but that’s just publicity. Anyone who thinks I’m not scared out of my mind whenever I do one of my stunts is crazier than I am.

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

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.

If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

We were the first generation to have to deal with the modern stardom of football. Some handled it better than others.

We are often attracted to the wrong things, whether it be money, fame, or approval.

Even as a child, Muhammad Ali got perverse pleasure out of being different. He liked the attention it got him, but most of all he just liked being himself: odd and independent.

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.

You know, fame is a funny thing, man, especially, you know, actors, musicians, rappers, rock singers, it’s kind of a lifestyle and it’s easy to get caught up in it – you go to bars, you go to clubs, everyone’s doing a certain thing… It’s tough.

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing.

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

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

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 hope when I’m dead I’ll be considered an icon, though.

What I’ve learned is that you really don’t need to be a celebrity or have money or have the paparazzi following you around to be famous.

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

Fame hit me like a ton of bricks.

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

I knew no one who’d ever been in the public eye.

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

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.

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.

I’ve watched a lot of people who became famous who completely change and I think it’s because they tend to believe all the hype that’s out there. I don’t think there’s that much hype about me.