Mary Gaitskill Quotes

This whole celebrity-fame thing is interesting. I'm the same person I always was. The only difference between being famous and not being famous is that people know who you are.

When you become a public figure, you still think, 'That's really not me; there's more to me than that.'

My individual, psychological descent coincided, ironically, with my ascent into the public eye.

I've spent the better part of two decades running both toward and away from an image - the Hollywood image - that had come to define me.

All that stuff - 'teen idol' - that wasn't me.

I hate to consider myself a celebrity.

At first all I wanted to be was famous; then I realized that fame had nothing to do with talent. I felt that I didn't do anything quite well enough, that I was one of those people who was famous but not very talented. So I said, okay, I'll be the Dinah Shore of the Seventies, on TV all the time but nobody quite knows why.

There's Madeleine, and then there's 'Madeleine Albright'. And I sometimes kind of think, who is this person? Once you become 'Madeleine Albright' it doesn't go away.

It's strange for my friends when they see me on TV and in magazines, because the person that they see doing interviews and pictures on the red carpet is not the person that they know.

I've always resisted the idea of becoming a David Hasselhoff, and I hope I'm still resisting it.

I've never really been America's sweetheart, but for a minute I think that's what they wanted me to be.

I never wanted to be Marilyn - it just happened. Marilyn's like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.

I have this dream life where I get to be a celebrity but I get to navigate the world fairly easily because I'm always in character.

I had a series of mini-breakdowns where the public persona - this thing, this face, this person who writes this music... I would walk past that person in the mirror or listen to that person playing guitar and I didn't know who they were.

I didn't read the book on how to be a well-adjusted celebrity.

My wife looks at the person Park Jae Sang and the singer who goes up on stage, Psy, as different people.

Once you become a celebrity, you are no longer a person, but an archetype.

I don't really think of myself or picture myself as a Hollywood person.

I just can't get used to the idea of being somebody unreal in people's minds. I can't live my life like that. And it's just anathema to being a writer. It's not healthy.

I don't think I responded very well to the sudden celebrity, the sudden fame, and the loss of privacy.

You cannot combine being a movie star with not being a movie star.

I never felt happy with the idea that part of what I do is to be an object to be looked at. I thought of my public persona as an entity separate to myself.

It's a strange thing that we're actors, and we're always playing a character, and then suddenly we're at a place like Cannes, and we're getting photographed as ourselves, and you're like, 'What do you do?'

I don't treat my family any differently because they're on television. I've always had a problem grasping fame. I don't think I understand fame, and I don't think I ever will. I think that anybody who thinks that they understand fame, they're doing it for the wrong reasons.

I never really created a difference between Shaffer Smith, my actual name, and Ne-Yo. They are kind of one in the same. It's been a bit of a gift and a curse. As far as Shaffer Smith is concerned, I've never viewed myself as a celebrity.