Wealth & Money Quote by Bill Murray

Murray takes a cultural aspiration - rich and famous - and splits it like a bad cocktail, letting the sugar settle. The joke lands because it treats fame as the add-on people think they want, then reveals it as the part that ruins the drink. "Try being rich first" is classic Murray deadpan: a fake piece of practical advice that smuggles in a value system. Money is framed as transactional and containable; fame is framed as invasive and endless.

The subtext is less anti-celebrity than anti-fantasy. Most people don’t actually crave public recognition in the abstract; they crave the security, autonomy, and insulation they imagine recognition brings. Murray argues you can buy much of that without handing over your face, your time, and your nervous system. The little downsides he name-checks - taxes, relatives - are deliberately banal. They’re the price of living in society and having a family, not existential hazards. It’s an implicit reminder that wealth’s problems are mostly administrative.

Then he pivots: fame is a "24-hour job". Not because you’re always working, but because you’re always being worked on - watched, interpreted, consumed. For an actor who’s spent decades as a public property (and as someone whose persona thrives on unpredictability), the line reads like experience distilled into a throwaway bit. The cultural context is a media ecosystem that monetizes access and attention; fame is no longer a byproduct of work but a permanent state of customer service. Murray’s intent is to puncture the wish and leave a more sobering choice: comfort or captivity.