Phyllis McGinley Quotes

My name is more important than myself.

Of all kinds of ambition, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest

The wise man thinks of fame just enough to avoid being despised.

Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.

I never wanted to be famous. I always wanted to take famous photographs.

We usually say that you cannot become a legend before death. But I am a living legend

It is easier to add to a great reputation than to get it.

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves: and perhaps that is the reason of it.

Glory and fame mean twelve thousand francs' worth of paid articles in the newspapers and five thousand crowns' worth of dinners.

Popularity is neither fame nor greatness.

When I was better known than her, she put my name in that tent. I was asked to do Celebrity Big Brother, but why should I? We live in an age where fame is not related to what you do.

Only think of my being alive with a reputation!

It is so strange - if anyone takes my name, I have the ability to make them famous.

If you have to tell them who you are, you aren't anybody.

He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.

A ready means of being cherished by the English is to adopt the simple expedient of living a long time. I have little doubt that if, say, Oscar Wilde had lived into his nineties, instead of dying in his forties, he would have been considered a benign, distinguished figure suitable to preside at a school prize-giving or to instruct and exhort scout masters at their jamborees. He might even have been knighted.

Fame opportunely despised often comes back redoubled.

Titles are valuable; they make us acquainted with many persons who otherwise would be lost among the rubbish.

Avoid shame, but do not seek glory; nothing so expensive as glory.

Dignity of position adds to dignity of character, as well as to dignity of carriage. Give us a proud position, and we are impelled to act up to it.

Men have solicitude about fame; and the greater share they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it.

Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it.

I'm lucky right now because I'm not that famous, people will look at the work just as the work, and people respond to it pretty well. It's just hard to know exactly what group I need to meet and where I need to be. I think fame helps, but I want it to be separate as much as it can. Fame is just so weird, people just love famous people.

If you become famous and you start making money, then people want to give you things. It's the exact opposite of how it's supposed to be.