See Also: GREATNESS

1. Celebrities … get consumed just as fast as new improved soaps, new clothing fashions and new ideas —Russell Baker
2. Celebrities used to be found like pearls in oysters and with much the same defensive mechanisms —Barbara Walters
3. Celebrity is like having an extra lump of sugar in your coffee —Mikhail Baryshnikov
4. Fame always melts like ice cream in the dish —Delmore Schwartz
5. Fame grows like a tree with hidden life —Horace
6. Fame is a colored patch on a ragged garment —Alexander Pushkin
7. Fame is like a crop of Canada thistles, very easy to sow, but hard to reap —Josh Billings

   In Billings’ phonetic dialect this reads: “Fame is like a crop ov kanada thissels, very eazy tew sew, but hard tew reap.”

8. Fame isn’t a thing. It’s a feeling. Like what you get after a pill —Joyce Cary
9. Fame … it’s like having a string of pearls given you. It’s nice, but after a while, if you think of it at all, it’s only to wonder if they’re real or cultured —W. Somerset Maugham
10. Fame, like a river, is narrowest at its source and broadest afar off —Proverb
11. Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy to those who woo her with too slavish knees —John Keats
12. Fame, like man, will grow white as it grows old —Abraham Cowley
13. Fame, like water, bears up the lighter things, and lets the weighty sink —Sir Samuel Tuke

    A slight variation by Francis Bacon: “Fame is like a river, that bears (modernized from ‘beareth’) on things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.”

14. Fame to the ambitious, is like salt water to the thirsty, the more one gets the more he wants —Emil Ebers
15. Glories, like glow-worms afar off, shine bright, but looked at near have neither heat nor light —John Webster

    Slightly modernized from “Afar off shine bright, but look’d too near have neither heat nor light.”

16. Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceases to enlarge itself till by broad spreading it disperse to nought —William Shakespeare

    Shakespeare used the old English ‘ceathes.’

17. Her life had become akin to living inside a drum with the whole world beating on the outside —Barbara Seaman

    In her biography of Susann, Lovely Me, this is how Seaman describes her subject’s life after she becomes a famous author.

18. Like grass that autumn yellows your fame will wither away —Phyllis McGinley
19. Like madness is the glory of this life —William Shakespeare
20. Men’s fame is like their hair, which grows after they are dead, and with just as little use to them —George Villiers
21. Our glories float between the earth and heaven like clouds which seem pavilions of the son —Edward Bulwer-Lytton
22. Posterity is a switchboard to past, present and future —Karl Shapiro
23. The public’s appetite for famous people is big as a mountain —Robert Motherwell, New York Times, January 22, 1986
24. The way to fame is like the way to heaven, through much tribulation —Lawrence Sterne

in good odor In favor, in good repute; highly regarded, esteemed. Odor in this phrase means ‘repute, estimation.’ In good odor appeared in print as early as the mid-19th century. Also current is its opposite in bad or ill repute ‘out of favor, disreputable.’

in the limelight In the public eye; famous or infamous; featured; acclaimed; exalted. Before the discovery of electricity, theater spotlights burned a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases in a lime (calcium oxide) cylinder. This produced an intense light which could be focused by lenses on a featured actor or actress, thus drawing the audience’s attention to that performer.

name in lights Fame, notoriety, recognition, acclaim. In the world of theater, the name of a well-known or featured actor or actress may be displayed in lights on the marquee over the theater’s entrance, thus drawing the public’s attention and, it is hoped, their patronage.

In contemporary usage, this expression is sometimes employed figuratively, and is no longer strictly limited to performing artists.

a place in the sun A position of favor, prominence, or recognition; a nice, warm, comfortable spot; a share in the blessings of the earth. Theoretically every individual is entitled to the benefits symbolized by the sun—life, growth, prosperity. The expression has been traced back to Pascal’s Pensées, translated as follows:

put on the map To establish the prominence of a person or place; to make well known or famous. This expression originally referred to an obscure community which, following the occurrence of a newsworthy event, was noted on maps. The common phrase now describes a happening that thrusts a person or object into the public limelight.

set the world on fire To achieve far-reaching success and renown; to make a name for one-self. This expression originated from the British set the Thames on fire, in which Thames is sometimes mistakenly thought to be derived homonymously from temse ‘sieve,’ through feeble allusion to a hard worker who uses a sieve with such celerity that the friction causes a fire. This theory is discounted by the fact that the French, Germans, and Italians all have similar sayings in regard to their own historic waterways, sayings which predate the English phrase. Thus, set the Thames on fire is undoubtedly the English version of the foreign expressions. When the phrase reached the United States, it was apparently Americanized to set the river on fire. As worldwide commerce and communication evolved, the phrase assumed its more cosmopolitan but somewhat less phenomenal form of set the world on fire. While the expression today usually implies the success of a vital and ambitious person, it is also applied negatively to the nonsuccess of a slow or lazy person. The term perhaps gained greater popularity through its incorporation into the lyrics of Bennie Benjamin’s song /Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire (1941).