“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

Dozza, the capital of modern frescoes

ITALY and art have always made a perfect blend – but in a small village called Dozza, the two go together in a rather surprising way.

Dozza, in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy midway between Imola and Bologna, is known as a Citta d’Arte and hosts a biennial “Painted Wall” festival.

The event, held every other September (this year’s runs from 11th-15th September), was begun in the 1960s as a means of putting Dozza on the map. It has certainly done so.

It attracts artists from all over Italy to paint murals around the historic centre and transform the entire village into a vast open-air gallery and tourist magnet.

With its magnificent 13th century castle and whisper-quiet streets, Dozza was already acclaimed as one of Italy’s most beautiful villages. Its Painted Wall event adds even more lustre to its appeal.

Enterprising locals offer wine tasting, castle visits, fashion shopping tours and much else and the little hotel-restaurant, Albergo Ristorante Cané, in Via XX settembre, makes a perfect stop-over before heading for Bologna airport and a flight home.

DE