Rob Sheffield Quotes

They're just big in the eyes of the American public.

It is fun, I learned, to stroll around with Spike Lee and to gauge other people's reactions. Everyone recognizes him.

Isn't it amazing how celebrity status preempts even the most ingrained hatreds?

Everybody gets talked about. Jesus Christ got talked about. It's just what happens. It's just part of it. And if people aren't talking, it's like, who are you? So I really let the people talk.

I've spent most of my adult life in the United States, and there the celebrity culture has been entrenched for a long time. It has made people almost literally insane, even those who make a great show of repudiating it. Those people, like novelists, who can no longer enjoy this status are condemned to despise it.

Maybe I should have a scandal - then I can be on 'Dancing With the Stars.'

Being a public figure a lot of people will really love what you do, but you know there is also a ton of people who will hate on it.

Once you become famous, there is nothing left to become but infamous.

These days, there are many people around the world who listen to the songs that made me infamous and read the books that made me respectable.

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

No one wants to stay in the tabloids. But it's actually not a terrible place to start.

All over the world I'm known. Whenever I go out on the street people come up to me and say... 'Hi, Beave,' and that doesn't bother me at all. It's something that I embrace.

But hey, controversy - well, it hasn't hurt me in 50 years.

Look, you're either loved or hated. Which is a good thing, as Bette Davis used to say.

I get recognized often, but they don't treat me like a god. It would be nice if they did, I think.

Celebrity is seen by a huge amount of people and certainly myself for a while as the pinnacle of society, of success. It is revered almost religiously, both the institution and its quickly growing member base.

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

Not only do I have celebrity, but I have notoriety, which is sometimes more seductive.

It would be thrilling if I could be boycotted or something. I think that's part of the thrill Madonna gets, when you know you've hit a nerve. But that doesn't scare me. To me what would be a lot scarier would be like appearing on an episode of 'Full House' or something.

Celebrity is intoxicating.

But I think, if you're in the spotlight, people are going to say bad things, and that's just the way it is.

When you watch these reality shows, the person that is hated on the most is usually the one that gets the most shine.

It took being famous to make me cool, which, by the way, I never forgot.

A great man, who lives intimately with his admirers, with difficulty escapes being made ridiculous.

People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher — a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It's the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.