"I never set out to be rich and famous. I wanted to follow my own path"

"Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability"

"How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?"

"The thing about being famous is, it's weird. The only people who get how weird it is are other famous people"

"Whereas you have someone like Houdini, who works really, really hard to get really, really famous, and then has actual intellectual ideas that he puts into the culture that stay there"

"So I'm a young boy in the 1940s growing up, seeing Ralph Bunche on a regular basis, seeing Duke Ellington on a regular basis. We know that these people are famous. They're living in the same community as we live in. They go to the same stores and shops"

"I think in the end, when you're famous, people like to narrow you down to a few personality traits. I think I've just become this ambitious, say-whatever's-on-her-mind, intimidating person. And that's part of my personality, but it's certainly not anywhere near the whole thing"

"I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives"

"One of the pleasant duties of America's most famous announcers during the relatively short swing era of the big bands was to host late-night remotes from some of the most famous ballrooms throughout the country"

"I served the famous professors and scholars, and eventually they learned that the Reverend Moon is superior to them. Even Nobel laureate academics who thought they were at the center of knowledge are as nothing in front of me"

"Italian girls are famous for being snobby and expecting men to make the first move. In America, if I don't make eye contact, the guys won't come over and talk. American girls just go for it. You men are spoiled"