Mary McCarthy Quotes

To want fame is to prefer dying scorned than forgotten.

I wanted to be famous. I wanted people to talk about me.

Some people will go to the opening of an envelope. They live their lives in the public eye and get off on it, they need it. They need that kind of adoration. If their name isn't in the tabloids once a week they feel like a failure.

Celebrity culture, it's everywhere, isn't it? It's reality TV, Big Brother. I didn't become a footballer to be famous, I became a footballer to be successful. I didn't want to be famous. Now people want to be famous. Why? Why would you want people following you about all day?

It does seem true that a lot of people will do anything, however humiliating, for fame.

It's not like I'm the most famous person in the world.

I never hid out. I was never big enough a star.

I don't think I'm a star or a celebrity or any thing like that.

He [Marquis de Lafayette] has a canine appetite for popularity and fame.

If you chase fame, you make bad choices. Being famous isn't interesting.

I've never seen myself as a star. I never call myself a celebrity or a superstar, whatever.

Anyone who is on the verge of kind of famous but not really relevant is kind of fun to play with.

I've already done enough to prove myself. Win or lose, I think I've done enough to cement my name in the history of this sport. So for me, it's more like I have to win just for an opportunity to get on the mic and say all that.

When I was a kid, all I ever wanted was to be famous.

I want to put my name in history. I love history.

Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be remarked for their vices and follies than not be noticed at all!

Notoriety is cheap. It's just easier to get noticed by doing something bad.

I often think how celebrated I am. / It is difficult not to think how celebrated I am. / And if I think how celebrated I am / They know who know that I am new / That is I knew I know how celebrated I am / And after all it astonishes even me.

There will be outrage and disgust and people will turn on me at the last, they will hate me, my reputation will forever be destroyed, my punishment earned, self-inflicted like this gunshot wound, and the world will finally know that I was the greatest feather man of them all.

It is not enough to be exceptionally mad, licentious and fanatical in order to win a great reputation; it is still necessary to arrive on the scene at the right time.

You can go to Japan, China, all the European, African, Arab, and South American countries, and man, they know me. I can't name a nation where they don't know me.

In the realm of pop celebrity, the bar has been lowered so far that there is no bar. People can be famous for being famous, famous for being infamous, famous for having once been famous and, thanks largely to the Internet, famous for not being famous at all.

The first thought that occurred to me, that night when I heard the chairman of the jury announce my name, was, Just think how many people hate me at this moment. Naturally, I wanted to annoy those people even further by being arrogant.

Fame nowadays is little else but notoriety.

He that comes in print because he would be known, is like the fool that comes into the market because he would be seen.