I’m an instant star. Just add water and stir.

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

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.

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

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.

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

‚Fame‘ exhausts me.

I get really restless when I haven’t worked for a day and a half. I have a recurring dream that people are lined up next to my bed, waiting for autographs and taking pictures of me!

Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

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?

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

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

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.

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

Water’s never clumsy.

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 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.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

Water is my drink.

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.

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

The Internet made fame wack and anonymity cool.

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.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.

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

I never wanted to be Marilyn – it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.

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

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.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

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.

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.

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.

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 love the sea.

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.

Bread without flesh is a good diet, as on many botanical excursions I have proved. Tea also may easily be ignored. Just bread and water and delightful toil is all I need – not unreasonably much, yet one ought to be trained and tempered to enjoy life in these brave wilds in full independence of any particular kind of nourishment.

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.

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

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.

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.

I was an overnight sensation.

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

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?‘

Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

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

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 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.

Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them.

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