“...those who succeeded the Voltaires, the d'Alemberts, & the Diderots at the head of the movement when these giants died, & who inherited their social acclaim, had little new to say...These swarming hacks hoped, like the great heroes of the Enlightenment before them, to write their way to fame & fortune. They found fame & fortune already monopolized by second-rate socialites who did not even put pen to paper most of the time, & yet who had the power & prestige to censor & condemn their works out of hand.”

“Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.”

“How fortunate we were who still had hope I did not then realise; I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and yet be unable to die”

“Extraordinary beauty can be a curse to the one who possesses it. one pays a dear price for fame and fortune”

“My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results... but it is the effort that's heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.”

“People come to New York to find fame and fortune. I found both, so I left.”