My name hasgotten to be a household wordöat least in certain households. I think there are now people who know my name, but don't know what Ido.I'm famous for being famous.

-Ashbery,John Lawrence
  Interview in PN Review, no.46.

Let usnow praise famousmen, and our fathersthat begat us.

-Bible (Apocrypha)
Ecclesiasticus 44:1.

   I awoke one morning and found myself famous.

-Rochdale
Of the instant popularity of Childe Harolde. Quoted in Thomas Moore Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (1830), vol.1.

Home'  re. Ce¤  le'  bre par sa fa c° on de rire: rire home¤  rique. N'a jamais existe¤  . Homer. Famous for his laugh.'Homeric laughter'. Never existed.

-Flaubert, Gustave
Bouvard et Pe¤  cuchet avec un choix des sce¤  narios, du Sottisier, L'Album de la Marquise et Le Dictionnaire des ide¤  es re c° ues. (published1881, translated by Geoffrey Wall,1994).

   You can get awful famous in this country in seven days.

-Hart, Gary originally  Gary Hartpence
  Rueful comment after reports of his marital infidelity ended his presidential campaign. In the NewYork Times,7 Oct.

It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their brightest hour.

-Hellman, Lillian Florence
  Pentimento,'Theatre'.

If you can't be famous, at least you can be notorious.

-Mahathir, Mohamad
c.1994  Quoted in the Eastern Express, 24  Apr1995.

Martyrdom†the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  The Devil's Disciple, act 3.

   'And everybody praised the Duke, Who this great fight did win.' 'But what good came of it at last?' Quoth little Peterkin. 'Why that I cannot tell,'said he, 'But 'twas a famous victory.'

-Southey, Robert
  'The Battle of Blenheim'.

My uncle was famous for his balanced point of view. At the time of which I am writing (when he was nearly seventy) it had become so balanced, that the act of balancing seemed rather automatic.One had only to offer him an opinion for him to balance it with a counter- opinion of exactly the same weight, as a grocer puts a pound weight against a pound of sugar.

-Spender, Sir Stephen Harold
World withinWorld, p.77.

Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.

-Thurber,James Grover
  Letter to Malcolm Cowley,11 Mar.

In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.

-Warhol, Andy
Quoted in AndyWarhol, Kasper Ko«   nig, Pontus Hulte¤  n and Olle Granath (eds) AndyWarhol (1968).

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves, The brilliant moon and all the milky sky, And all that famous harmony of leaves, Has blotted out man's image and his cry.

-Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)
  'The Sorrow of Love', stanza1. Collected inThe Rose (1893).