When we imagine fame, we forget that it is inextricably connected to being too visible in the eyes of some, to bugging them unduly, to coming to be seen as the plausible cause of their humiliation: a symbol of how the world has treated them unfairly.

So soon enough, the world will start...

Social media hasn’t helped. It’s made it far easier than before to be famous. And therefore, by necessity, far easier to be hated. A minor celebrity can now regularly face all the vitriol previously accorded only to Hollywood stars.

Paradoxically, the famous are the very last people on eart...

Every worst fear about oneself (that one is stupid, ugly, not worthy of existence) will daily be actively confirmed by strangers.

One will be exposed to the fact that people one has never met, about whom one would have only goodwill, actively loathe one.

One will learn that detestat...

At a collective, political level we should pay great attention to the fact that, today, so many people (particularly young ones) want to be famous – and even see fame as a necessary condition for a successful life. Rather than dismiss this wish, we should grasp its underlying worrying meaning: th...

Fame really just means you get noticed a great deal – not that you get understood, appreciated or loved.

At an individual level, the only mature strategy is to give up on fame. The aim that lay behind the desire for fame remains important. One does still want to be apprecia...

Every new famous person who disintegrates breaks down in public or loses their mind is judged in isolation, rather than being interpreted as a victim of an inevitable pattern within the pathology of fame.

The world isn’t generally kind to the famous for very long. The reason is basic: the s...

The desire for fame has its roots in the experience of neglect, in injury. No one would want to be famous who hadn’t also, somewhere in the past, been made to feel extremely insignificant.

We sense the need for a great deal of admiring attention when we have been painfully exposed to earli...

When one has an insignificant or even traumatic childhood, one dreams that some day the world will pay attention.

We also believe then when we’re finally famous, our parents will have to admire us too (which throws up an insight into one of the great signs of good parenting: that your chil...

But even if our parents were warm and full of praise, there might still be a problem. It might be that it was the buffeting and indifference of the wider world (starting with the schoolyard) that was intolerable after all the early years of adulation at home.

One might have emerged from fa...

Fame makes people more, not less, vulnerable, because it throws them open to unlimited judgement.

Everyone is wounded by a cruel assessment of their character or merit.

But the famous have an added challenge in store. The assessments will come in from legions of people who would nev...

For those who are already famous, the only way to stay sane is to stop listening to what the wider world is saying. This applies to the good things as much as to the bad. It is best not to know.

The wise person knows that their products need attention. But they make a clear distinction bet...

• When you are famous, you will be safe from rejection. You won’t have to win over every new person.
• Fame will mean other people will be flattered and delighted even if you are only slightly interested in them. They will be amazed to see you in the flesh.
• When you’re not please...