Fleeting Fame Quotes

Fame is a fickle thing that only lasts as long as you can be out there offering yourself to the public. And as soon as you relax for five minutes, they're gone, you know, and they're following somebody else.

People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher — a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It's the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.

Every other species of talent carries with it its eternity; we enjoy the work of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, only as thousands will do after us; but the actor - his memory is with his generation, and that passes away.

The fame that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; intellectual superiority is a possession glorious and eternal.

In America, it takes about two weeks in the limelight for the whole country to think you've been around for years.

Honor is but an empty bubble.

When you're superhot, you don't have the time to enjoy being superhot, because you're working your ass off. By the time we will actually have time to really go out and screw around, we won't be hot anymore.

Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers.

Every artist will one day face the moment when he or she is doing what he or she does after the style has passed and the art-world heat-seeking machine has moved on.

People will forget me pretty quick.

'LIFE Magazine' decided to do a story about a young actress in Hollywood in 1954. And I made the cover. And I remember that the fellow who was doing the story on me said, 'Listen, kid, I just want you to know, if Eisenhower gets a cold, you're off the cover.'

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

A lot of DJs don't realize they're here today and gone tomorrow. They're literally taking jets to every show. It's crazy how much money they're spending.

When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.

There's a high point in your career, and then people get bored; they want something else to come along.

The likeness of the world? A shadow! And world's glory? A dream!

No matter what heights you achieve, even if you're Brad Pitt, the slide is coming, sure as death and taxes.

You actually don't want people thinking your product is cool, because then you're a fad.

With the Internet, you can be easily exposed and disposed. You can create some viral video, the biggest thing ever, and then four weeks later, no one remembers your name.

There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.

There are people who, like new songs, are in vogue only for a time.

There was a time when fame meant that you were either someone who is really gifted in your field or you were making an impact or you are famous because you were a really horrible person, you know? But now, you can become famous by eating a frog. It's just not the same thing.

Nothing is so fickle and uncertain as popularity. It is here today and gone tomorrow. It is a sandy foundation, and sure to fail those who build upon it.

Heavy metal is immortal, but we're not.

Sometimes I'll have a brief window of mini-fame thanks to 'Access Hollywood.' But it only lasts a couple of days, and then no one recognizes me anymore.