Shelby Foote Quotes

Icon. What is an icon? When someone is iconic it means they have established a certain kind of legacy possibly, and I think it does come with time. It's something in the arts, I feel. Maybe not, maybe it doesn't have to be in the arts exactly. I'm not really sure. But I don't think you are born an icon.

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

But I think it's important that things endure.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

Fame comes and goes. Longevity is the thing to aim for.

SUCCESS is not about HERE and NOW. you must pass the TEST OF TIME. the litmus test is FIFTY YEARS from now. SUCCESS is SUCCESSION.

We endeavor more that men should speak of us, than how and what they speak, and it sufficeth us that our name run in men's mouths, in what manner soever. It stemma that to be known is in some sort to have life and continuance in other men's keeping.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

I think longevity is more important than trying to make people realize you're around every second.

As people get older and fall out of the spotlight, people's memory of them changes.

It ain't often that a man's reputation outlasts his money.

I was just thinking of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe and how young they were when they died. I would like to be a pop icon who survives. I would like to be a living icon.

I don't think much about whether fans will remember me.

I've been around a long time. Maybe the people like me.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

All things take time. A lot of my films still run on cable and are in video stores, and there's a whole generation that doesn't know who I am. So, it's a dichotomy. In some people's minds I may never grow up.

Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.

It's irrelevant to me what young Singaporeans think of me. I've lived long enough to know that you may be idealised in life and reviled after you're dead.

I came to Hollywood determined to follow in Jean Harlow's footsteps, but I was determined not to die young. My hope was to endure. And endure I have.

I want to be around for a long time. I don't want to be a one-hit wonder.

How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation?

We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.

It sure is a nice feeling to know that people will remember you after you're gone, that you'll manage to be a little bit of history.

My reputation precedes me now.

The stuff that's good is the stuff that lives on.