Richard Branson Quotes

I'm still very sensitive and wary of people recognising me The only thing that really annoys me is people trying to surreptitiously take a photo on their phone without asking. I feel it's cowardly and a bit pathetic. Just ask me if you really want me to have a photograph with you.

If you invite someone into your front room you can't be surprised when there are suddenly people outside your windows with cameras.

I don't get why it would be interesting. I'm not that different. And also, now with Instagram and everything, everyone's so on their phones that even when I'm in a restaurant like this, where you wouldn't expect it, someone will come up and ask to get a picture with me and I'm like, 'No!'

People want to know everything, and so they put you in the limelight. Sometimes, I am not down to earth, and I think I am flying away from the outer realms of reality.

I don't want three million people digesting my private life over their cornflakes.

I'm just grateful I didn't have to spend my early 20s in front of paparazzi cameras.

I'm not a hermit, but I definitely stay in a lot more than I used to. There's more attention now then there ever was. You walk down the street with someone and it's a story. It becomes national news, you know what I mean? So, I still do things, but I stay home a lot more.

It seems everyone in the world is now a potential member of the paparazzi. Most of the time people ask if they can take a picture with their mobiles but increasingly they don't bother to ask.

I went through a period where I was really tired of seeing and reading about myself.

People are really emotionally affected by actors. And it's hard to know how to behave in a way that doesn't impose or withdraw. Because everybody wants your attention. Everywhere you go, you know?

There are still people, obviously, who are stopping you and want a selfie because they need to justify their own lives by being in close proximity to a celebrity... but those are minor with me. I'm not a major celebrity.

People coming up and saying something nice is always welcome. But when you're being secretly photographed, that's not so nice. I would rather shake hands with someone and exchange a few words than take a selfie.

I'm terrible about people wanting to take pictures with me. I'm a giant baby about it. They treat you like a cartoon. There's nothing you can do except make light of it. That's if I'm in the mood - sometimes I get superbummed.

It took me a good decade of hiding in my house and not going outside to even, like, get my arms around this idea of celebrity, where suddenly people are looking for you to pick your nose or get a shot of you kissing some woman. It's a very discombobulating thing.

Nobody cares about your autograph. There are cameras everywhere, and there are media outlets for them to 'file their story'.

Even if you're not being chased by paparazzi, there will be someone doing selfies, so everybody has to be camera-ready all the time. Whoever you are, everybody has to be ready now!

An actor's life is abnormal! It feels like I'm being watched all the time, whether I'm at a restaurant, gym, or anywhere. I sometimes feel I don't want to be looked at.

I have to pay a huge price to express myself. You get people asking to take photos all the time; you can't ride the subway... I still ride the subway, but there's always people sneaking photos or coming up to you.

It is a bit surreal when I'm out and people are having a look or staring or wanting selfies.

It's been perfect. I can still ride a subway and work with great people. I can't imagine being Julia Roberts. I don't have the fortitude to withstand that kind of attention.

I don't hide from cameras or anything. It doesn't bother me. I don't seek our press for the women I'm dating, but if it finds me, it finds me.

Arnie has more people watching him park the car than we do out on the course.

Most of us who got into film industry in early 2000s weren't prepared for the constant vigilance that being a celebrity requires, and there's no school for learning how to handle it well or gracefully. It's a hard thing to figure out. A lot of people don't deal with it well because they're either too paranoid or they're doing things they probably shouldn't be doing in public.

You know the theory of cell irritability? If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba, the cell will completely collapse and become nothing. That's kind of what it's like being famous. People say hi, how are you doing, and after the thousandth time, you just get angry; you really pop.

The word reality scared me. I just looked at reality as everybody follows me around with a camera, and I'm not that kind of person. I fought for my privacy in England. And I didn't see another way it could be done.