Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy¹, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.

Benjamin Haydon

He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.

Chuang-tzu (369 BC - 286 BC), The Great Supreme²

You can't choose what you're famous for in life.

Dave Kellett, Sheldon, 10-11-09

To have had fame, even very minor³ fame, and to have lost it, got older and maybe put on a little weight is a kind of living death.

David Nicholls, One Day, 2010

The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)

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

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

If you're holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time.

J. K. Rowling, Harry⁴ Potter and the Goblet⁵ of Fire

Living in L.A., everyone likes to mold you and change you. I don't care about fame, I don't care about being a celebrity⁶. I know that's part of the job, but I don't feed into anyone's idea of who I should be.

Jessica Alba

How you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you do.

John Green, An Abundance of Katherines, 2008

The future will erase⁷ everything—there’s no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend⁸ oblivion. The infinite future makes that kind of mattering impossible.

John Green, An Abundance of Katherines, 2008

The voracious⁹ ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.

John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic¹⁰ piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths.

John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

I could not conceive that [fans] actually wanted me to sign something. It took a long time for me to figure out (a) just say 'Thank you' and sign the thing, and (b) smile in the picture, because if you try to just half-smile you're going to look constipated.

Joss Whedon, Entertainment Weekly, 08-30-13

If you're a misfit within a group of misfits, does that mean you're actually popular and normal?

Laura Preble, The Queen Geek Social Club, 2006

Glory is fleeting¹¹, but obscurity is forever.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)

I think the promise of fame and what it holds to you as a child and dreaming of it is not what it is. What it is, I'm not complaining about, but it's just different than the reality you dreamed.

Rosie O'Donnell, Today Show interview, 04-08-08

It's going to come true like you knew it, but it's not going to feel like you think.

Rosie O'Donnell, Today Show interview, 04-08-08

I'm a bit of an abstract figure that people can project their fantasies on; it's pretty much what we all are, otherwise we wouldn't be stars, and people wouldn't be interested. But people project things on you that have nothing to do with what you really are, or they see a little something and then exaggerate it. And you can't really control that.

Salma Hayek

Famous I don't know about. It's hard to be famous and alive. I just want to play music every day and hear someone say, 'Thanks, that was great, here's some money, same time tomorrow, okay?'

Terry Pratchett, Soul Music, page 151

Popularity? It is glory's small change.

Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

Glory is like a circle in the water,

Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,

Till by broad spreading it disperses¹² to naught¹³.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)