Charles H. Townes Quotes

I guess when you have that one monster season, it's good because you're recognized. If it weren't for that season, not as many people would know about my career. But it also kind of diminishes what I did in other years.

Fame and fortune should never get in front of your passion. The passion will generate the fame and fortune, if you're good enough.

You can't be a good actor if you get too affected by fame. Because then you're not real, and you're not really wanting more. You look at a lot of actors who, before they were famous, did a lot of amazing work, and once they got too big, it just got off.

Don't worry about being a star, worry about doing good work, and all that will come to you.

I thought maybe I would become a god, or a goddess, or a president or a Nobel Prize winner.

Things with my dad were pretty good until I won an Academy Award. He was really loving to me until I got more attention than he did. Then he hated me.

Even as a kid, I never wanted to be famous; I wanted to be good.

I was 82 years old before Who's Who thought I was enough of a big shot to do a piece on me.

If you do good work, you start to make a name for yourself and things can come around. Weird little happenstances happen.

It is a good thing to happen to you, to have that taste of fame because then you don't hanker for it.

I want to make a name for myself.

Its only when you are a great actor and are recognised for your good work that you become famous. Unless you are in the news for the wrong reasons!

Being champion is all well and good, but you can't eat a crown.

It's nice to walk into a club and see your picture. Then you know you've done something good.

People seldom become famous for what they say until after they are famous for what they've done.

You know, I think when I reflect on it, I think there's certainly a sense of history. When you have ambitions to play this game, you want to be one of the best ever, and you want to play so well and be so effective that you want people to remember your name 100 years from now.

Ambition is sneered at by some bands. It seems like a pretty good thing to me.

It makes me feel good that I can now sit there and go, I've worked with Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, all the great actors that I've worked with... Sir Ben Kingsley.

Eventually, the most important thing is success. I want to achieve a lot of success. It doesn't feel good when your film doesn't do well, and yet you are appreciated... everybody should succeed.

I just feel really good about my accomplishments. I haven't had, like, a party because a deal goes through or something like that. I don't know. I need to develop that - I need to have something that I do when things go right.

Just because you're not famous, doesn't mean you're not good.

Year after year, the Nobel Awards bring a moment of happiness not only to the recipients, not only to colleagues and friends of the recipients, but even to strangers.

I got a very good life. I sold plenty of records, I get recognized plenty, I can always have somebody call up and get me a fine table at a restaurant. What do you really need, ultimately?

I don't think I've done any profound work yet... People ask me, 'How would you want to be remembered?' I tell them I don't want to be remembered! I'm not here to become a Madhubala or receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. I'm not that kind of a person. And I'm not brash about it; it's just the way I am.

I worked a long time to get good at what I'm doing, and nobody handed me a recording contract because of who my father is.