“Fame itself … doesn’t really afford you anything more than a good seat in a restaurant.”
– David Bowie

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“I’m shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I’ve done everything I can to avoid it.”
Johnny Depp

“If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I’m still waiting, it’s all been to seduce women basically.”
– Jean-Paul Sartre

“There’s no difference between fame and infamy now. There’s a new school of professional famous people that don’t do anything. They don’t create anything.”
– Ricky Gervais

“Fame doesn’t fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.”
– Marilyn Monroe

“The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Fame hit me like a ton of bricks.”
– Eminem

“If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“I think I understand what military fame is – to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers.”
– William Tecumseh Sherman

“Fame was thrilling only until it became gruelling. Money was fun only until you ran out of things to buy.”
– Gloria Swanson

“What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.”
– Lord Byron

“A life without fame can be a good life, but fame without a life is no life at all.”
– Clive James

“Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that, and changes name as it changes direction.”
– Dante Alighieri

Thoughts on fame

Conserving 800-year-old tiles at Lacock Abbey

THIS autumn, a National Trust team at Lacock Abbey will be working on the cleaning and conservation of more than 1,000 tiles, dating back to the Middle Ages..

Lacock’s collection of tiles contains medieval tiles, dating from the 1200s to the 1400s, and Tudor tiles, dating from the 1500s. The medieval tiles would have decorated the rooms of the abbey cloister (now so familiar from appearances in Harry Potter, Wolf Hall and the Hollow Crown). The Tudor tiles were custom-made for Sir William Sharington, who bought Lacock Abbey from King Henry VIII after the dissolution of the monasteries.

After centuries of footfall, the British weather and poor storage arrangements (some of the tiles were found buried underground) they are in desperate need of conservation. A team of trained volunteers will be working to clean, process and catalogue the tiles using specialist conservation methods to ensure that the already fragile tiles are not damaged further.

The work will take place over two weeks and visitors will be able to watch the progress, from Monday 2nd to Friday 6th September, and from Monday 14th to Friday 18th October.

Pictured: A Tudor tile from the collection at Lacock Abbey. © National Trust Images / John Hammond