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I don't think about being famous, really. Being an author, I don't generally get stopped as I walk down the street. It's not like being a movie star.

The problem with fame is you no longer belong to you. You lose your persona and become the object of other people's obsession. I feel watched 90% of the time, but that is something I drew with the cards that I drew.

It's a very nice kind of quasi-fame being a writer, because you remain largely anonymous and you can have a private life, which I really cherish. I don't like to be in the public light all that much. I don't crave the whole fame thing at all.

Fame was never something I was seeking in my artistic journey. It's to be used as a tool for an artist to break open doors and keep creating. That's how I enjoyed fame in '74; it was not just for the emptiness of being famous.

Fame is something I think happens as a result of trying to do good work. If you're trying to be famous, your work usually suffers.

Fame isolates people from reality. That happens to many artists, and I don't want it to happen to me.

Thank God I've never had the sort of intense fame that means you can't walk up the road. That sort of blazing stardom must be difficult to cope with and maintain; my career has just bubbled along happily.

Don't expect fame to come overnight. That filtered through to me in my own career. Look at Madonna: she's not the best singer in the world, but she's got where she has through hard work.

I'm already more famous than I want to be. And yet at the same time, fame feeds your potential as a creative person. You're in a vacuum if you don't have a certain amount of fame.