Quotes & Sayings About Vanity Fair

Jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the time was; but when he at last extorted from the blushing Major (who never told fibs, however they might be to his advantage) what was the real hour of the morning, he broke out into a volley of bad language, which we will not repeat here, but by which he gave Dobbin to understand that he would jeopardy his soul if he got up at that moment, that the Major might go and be hanged, that he would not travel with Dobbin, and that it was most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out of his sleep in that way; on which the discomfited Major was obliged to retreat, leaving Jos to resume his interrupted slumbers. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about! — Jean Webster

Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions. — William Makepeace Thackeray

My dogs.
Bill Blass, after being asked "Who or what is the greatest love of your life?" by Vanity Fair magazine — Bill Blass

Say, you told me you thought Les Miserables was the greatest novel ever written. I think Vanity Fair is the greatest. Let's fight. - Joe Willard — Maud Hart Lovelace

My father loved biographies. He loved the true tales of interesting people that were shaping our culture. I get why he dug 'Vanity Fair.' You feel smarter, somehow, for reading it. — Abigail Spencer

Pilgrims travel as suspected people through Vanity Fair. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

They said this is Vanity Fair, and I said, Oh, I already take the magazine. They said Annie Leibovitz wants to take your picture and I thought, How nice! — Shirley Knight

You'll never see my books on Vanity Fair I'm not the type of author they would want there — Stanley Victor Paskavich

Discussions of the effects of serial publication of Victorian novels on their authors and readers1 usually draw attention to the author's peculiar opportunities for cliff-hanging suspense, as, for instance, when Thackeray has Becky Sharp counter old Sir Pitt's marriage proposal at the end of Vanity Fair's fourth number with the revelation
that she is already married, and the reader must wait a month before the husband's identity is revealed. Or it may be pointed out how the author can modify his story in response to his readers' complaints or recommendations, as when Trollope records in his
Autobiography how he wrote Mrs Proudie out of the Barchester Chronicles after overhearing two clergymen in the Athenaeum complaining of his habit of reintroducing the same characters in his fiction. — Ian Gregor

Would it be politically incorrect to call a top-ranked female anchor (with a law degree) currently on the cover of Vanity Fair a bimbo? Or would it be rude, ludicrous, wrong and pathetic? Nothing about this is hard. — Kathleen Parker

The New York of the plays, the movies, the books; the New York of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and Vogue. It was a beacon, a spire, a beacon on top of a spire. A light, always glowing from afar, visible even from the cornfields of Iowa, the foothills of the Dakotas, the deserts of California. The swamps of Louisiana. Beckoning, always beckoning. Summoning the discontented, seducing the dreamers. Those whose blood ran too hot, and too quickly, causing them to look about at their placid families, their staid neighbors, the graves of their slumbering ancestors and say - I'm different. I'm special. I'm more. They all came to New York. — Melanie Benjamin

After the war in Afghanistan, Anna [Wintour, editor of Vogue], deciding to save the world one hair-roller at a time, thought the best way to help the women in this beleaguered country was to start a small beauty school in Kabul, where aid workers could get their roots done. Vanity Fair, edited by Bush-basher Graydon Carter, cheered her great humanitarian effort. — Myrna Blyth

Heaven help us! The girls have only to turn the tables,and say of one of their own sex,'She is as vain as a man,' and they will have perfect reason. The bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their toilets, quite as proud of their personal advantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascinations, as any coquette in the world. — William Makepeace Thackeray

We really care about photography at 'Vanity Fair.' — Graydon Carter

A fit queen for that nest of roses was the human flower that adorned it, for a year of love and luxury had ripened her youthful beauty into a perfect bloom. Graceful by nature, art had little to do for her, and, with a woman's aptitude, she had acquired the polish which society alone can give. Frank and artless as ever, yet less free in speech, less demonstrative in act; full of power and passion, yet still half unconscious of her gifts; beautiful with the beauty that wins the heart as well as satisfies the eye, yet unmarred by vanity or affectation. She now showed fair promise of becoming all that a deep and tender heart, an ardent soul and a gracious nature could make her, once life had tamed and taught her more. — Louisa May Alcott

From time to time, just about every 'Vanity Fair' writer has a chance to sell rights to an article or a book to Hollywood. — Bryan Burrough

It seemed only right that beauty was the key to the industry, and the sacrificing of beauty to buy possessions seemed only fair to her evolving mind. — Esther Dalseno

If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you're always going to be disappointed. — Madonna

I've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla. — Mira Nair

I refused to have bookshelves, horrified that I'd feel compelled to organise the books in some regimented system - Dewey or alphabetical or worse - and so the books lived in stacks, some as tall as me, in the most subjective order I could invent.
Thus Nabokov lived between Gogol and Hemingway, cradled between the Old World and the New; Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Hardy were stacked together not for their chronological proximity but because they all reminded me in some way of dryness (though in Dreiser's case I think I was focused mainly on his name): George Eliot and Jane Austen shared a stack with Thackeray because all I had of his was Vanity Fair, and I thought that Becky Sharp would do best in the presence of ladies (and deep down I worried that if I put her next to David Copperfield, she might seduce him). — Rebecca Makkai

It's pretty crazy. I was thinking about that today, how 'True Blood' has penetrated so much of the cultural zeitgeist. It's truly amazing; it's incredible! The cover of 'Rolling Stone' is major. What's next, the cover of 'Vanity Fair?' When I'm in a 'New Yorker' cartoon, then I will feel like I have made it. — Denis O'Hare

Vanity Fair has but two major articles in its editorial creed: first, to believe in the progress and promise of American life, and, second, to chronicle that progress cheerfully, truthfully, and entertainingly. — Frank Crowninshield

In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on the 50th anniversary of the New York City Ballet. My life, to a great extent, had been spent at and with the New York City Ballet, and I decided to try it. It was very scary, writing about something I loved so much and had such strong opinions about. — Robert Gottlieb

I've attended some pretty glamorous events over the years, like the Costume Ball at the Met, the Golden Globes, and the Vanity Fair Oscar party. They are usually held at distinguished cultural institutions like the Met or the Annenberg Center - always beautiful spaces that are home to priceless works of art. The first thing they do when a Hollywood party rents out the place is push all the art to the corner so it doesn't get in the way. They have to do that so there's room for a red carpet, a bar, a prime rib carving station, a photo booth, and, for some reason, an Acura parked inside, in the middle of the party floor. There's always a parked Acura at every major Hollywood party. Who — Mindy Kaling

Look about and contemplate life! 1 Everything is transient and nothing endures. There is birth and death, growth and decay; there is combination and separation. 2 The glory of the world is like a flower: it stands in full bloom in the morning and fades in the heat of the day. 3 Wherever you look, there is a rushing and a struggling, and an eager pursuit of pleasure. There is a panic flight from pain and death, and hot are the flames of burning desires. The world is vanity fair, full of changes and transformations. — Paul Carus

But as it turned out, the two had a great deal in common, for both Bailey and Thackeray (named for the famous novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair) were devoted bibliophiles who believed that "a book a day kept the world at bay," as Thackeray was fond of saying. Bailey was the offspring of a generation of badgers who insisted that "Reader" was the most rewarding vocation to which a virtuous badger might be called and who gauged their week's anticipated pleasure by the height of their to-be-read pile. (Perhaps you know people like this. I do.) — Susan Wittig Albert

California, still a magical vanity fair. — Eileen Granfors

The happy story right now is the full page in Vanity Fair, which gives me a great deal of exposure. — Jackie DeShannon

As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I don't read a lot of magazines, but when I'm traveling, I'll pick up a copy of 'Vanity Fair' to read on the plane - it's like a full meal! The articles are so good, especially the crime stories. Browsing the Web is more like snacking - but I live on snacks. — Sam Trammell

Then I saw in my Dream, that when they were got out of the Wilderness, they presently saw a Town before them, and the name of that Town is Vanity; and at the Town there is a Fair kept, called Vanity Fair: it is kept all the year long; it beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the Town where 'tis kept is lighter than Vanity; and also because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is Vanity. As is the saying of the wise, All that cometh is Vanity. Section — John Bunyan

I'm not invited to the Vanity Fair dinner where they watch the Oscars - or even the Oscars themselves - so I sit at home and watch it with a bunch of close friends. — Brett Ratner

The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do? — William Makepeace Thackeray

On London Tonight, on television right now, a reporter is standing in front of a building that is under construction. It's windy, and the wind has pressed the fabric of his slacks against his body, outlining his penis. You can see everything - the length and width and the fact that he's uncut and hangs to the right. But I bet none of the viewers even noticed. In America, there would be letters to the station. There would be a lawsuit because a child was watching. The headlines would dub the reporter "Anchor of Shame" and he'd be fired. When our own Greta Van Susteren got her eyes done, it was front-page news for a week. So you can be sure, if Anderson Cooper's penis were to be visible in outline beneath his trousers, he'd be on the cover of People, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. We are obsessed with sex in an unnatural way. — Augusten Burroughs

Vanitas vanitatum has rung in the ears Of gentle and simple for thousands of years; The wail still is heard, yet its notes never scare Either simple or gentle from Vanity Fair. — Frederick Locker-Lampson

Would ye, O my sisters, really possess modesty, ye must remember that the possession of virtue, of any denomination, is incompatible with ignorance and vanity! ye must acquire that soberness of mind, which the exercise of duties, and the pursuit of knowledge, alone inspire, or ye will still remain in a doubtful dependent situation, and only be loved whilst ye are fair! — Mary Wollstonecraft

By humbly and frankly acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what good you may do. I knew once a gentleman and very worthy practitioner in Vanity Fair, who used to do little wrongs to his neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise for them in an open and manly way afterwards - and what ensued? My friend Crocky Doyle was liked everywhere, and deemed to be rather impetuous - but the honestest fellow. — William Makepeace Thackeray

We did a 'Vanity Fair' spread for 'The Hunger Games,' and we were on set, and I saw a little head pop up from the tree. There were three teenage girls who snuck past security and made it into the forest. — Alexander Ludwig

Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, and did not care to read
who had the habits and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless virtue. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Could the best and kindest of us who depart from the earth have an opportunity of revisiting it, I suppose he or she (assuming that any Vanity Fair feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound) would have a pang of mortification at finding how soon our survivors were consoled. — William Makepeace Thackeray

He began to feel that she was very lonely indeed. "If he'd been here," she said, "those cowards would never have dared to insult me." She thought about "him" with great sadness and perhaps longing
about his honest, stupid, constant kindness and fidelity; his never-ceasing obedience; his good humour; his bravery and courage. Very likely she cried, for she was particularly lively, and had put on a little extra rouge, when she came down to dinner. — William Makepeace Thackeray

We've already had Malthus, the friend of humanity. But the friend of humanity with shaky moral principles is the devourer of humanity, to say nothing of his conceit; for, wound the vanity of any one of these numerous friends of humanity, and he's ready to set fire to the world out of petty revenge - like all the rest of us, though, in that, to be fair; like myself, vilest of all, for I might well be the first to bring the fuel and run away myself. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Michael Lewis, author of 'Moneyball,' got special access for a profile of Obama for 'Vanity Fair' - but Obama insisted on redlining his quotes. — Ben Shapiro

Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way still), feel very little. See the consequences of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves married as they do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required moment command and withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected, and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I've read seventeen novels and bushels of poetry
really necessary novels like Vanity Fair and Richard Feverel and Alice in Wonderland. Also Emerson's Essays and Lockhart's Life of Scott and the first volume of Gibbon's Roman Empire and half of Benvenuto Cellini's Life
wasn't he entertaining? He used to saunter out and casually kill a man before breakfast. — Jean Webster

By the time I was successful with covers of 'Vogue' and 'Harper's Bazaar' and 'Vanity Fair' and the Lancome contract, someone asked how old I was. They almost fainted when I said 33. — Isabella Rossellini

This is stupid."
"Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drink. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The pettiness, the silliness. You think in war it must be different. Must be better. With death around the corner, men united against hardship, the cunning of the enemy, people must think harder, faster, be ... better. Be heroic.
Only it's just the same. In fact do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it's worse. There aren't many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they'll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There's no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more. — Joe Abercrombie

Now, being on the cover of Vanity Fair is as important as being in great movies. The lines are very, very blurred. — Jason Patric

He had placed himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him. She didn't wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him. She wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love. — William Makepeace Thackeray

If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue. — William Makepeace Thackeray

And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men embarrassed are altogether honest, very likely. They conceal something; they exaggerate chances of good luck; hide away the reals state of affairs; say that things are flourishing when they are hopeless; keep a smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of bankruptcy
are ready to lay hold of any pretext for delay, or of any money, so as to stave off the inevitable ruin a few days longer. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I always felt like I was meant to have been born in another era, another time. — Johnny Depp

I have this theory that people in Hollywood don't read. They read 'Vanity Fair' and then consider themselves terribly well read. I think I can basically write about anybody without getting caught. — Jackie Collins

My parents put the New Yorker in my crib. I saw Vogue and Vanity Fair around the house before I could read. — Richard Avedon

Goliath symbolizes the vanity and the illusions of this world. They disappear in a puff — Bangambiki Habyarimana

Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before him
his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless condition
no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of him
neither name nor money to bequeath
a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The 'Vanity Fair' article was interesting to do because it was the first time I ever really had the opportunity to be absolutely truthful with a reporter about every aspect of my life. — Caitlyn Jenner

If he had but a little more brains, she thought to herself, I might make something of him; but she never let him perceive the opinion she had of him; listened with indefatigable complacency to his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes...When he came home, she was alert and happy; when he went out she pressed him to go; when he stayed at home, she played and sang for him, made him good drinks, superintended his dinner, warmed his slippers, and steeped his soul in comfort. The best of women {I have heard my grandmother say) are hypocrites. We don't know how much they hide from us: how watchful they are when they seem most artless and confidential: how often those frank smile which they wear so easily are traps to cajole or elude or disarm--I don't mean in your mere coquettes, but your domestic models and paragons of female virute. — William Makepeace Thackeray

All is vanity, nothing is fair. — William Makepeace Thackeray

They talked about each others' houses, and characters, and families
just as the Joneses do about the Smiths. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair magazine reports that former President Clinton and Al Gore haven't spoken to each other since George W. Bush's inauguration. Not only that, Bill and his wife, Hillary, haven't spoken since Richard Nixon's inauguration. — Conan O'Brien

'Vanity Fair' caught me at a very exciting time in my life filled with night clubs, international fashion shows, celebrities and lots of cash to go around. Sometimes things just fall into place. 'Vanity Fair' was one of those things. — Jeremy Jackson

So there was splendour and wealth, but no great happiness perchance, behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt House with its smoky coronets and ciphers. The feasts there were of the grandest in London, but there was not overmuch content therewith, except among the guests who sat at my lord's table. Had he not been so great a Prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked at indulgently. — William Makepeace Thackeray

When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the other party's crime. It is not that you are selfish, brutal, and angry at the failure of a speculation
no, no
it is that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery and with the most sinister motives. From a mere sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a villain
otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself. — William Makepeace Thackeray

But here is the single greatest thing about the 'Vanity Fair' party: There are uniformed In-N-Out Burger employees circulating the room with trays of cheeseburgers all night long. — Diablo Cody

The greatest thing that prepared me for editing 'Vanity Fair' was having four kids because you just learn to subjugate your ego with the greater interest in mind. — Graydon Carter

[As they say in the old legends]Before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither. — William Makepeace Thackeray

It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 't is kept is lighter than vanity. — John Bunyan

Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world? — William Makepeace Thackeray

There's usually one piece in 'Vanity Fair' every month that grabs me, but when it presents hatchet jobs without substantiation to impress its liberal friends, I laugh first, then toss. — Dan Jenkins

For my type of story and my kind of writing, I think 'Vanity Fair' is the right forum. — Dominick Dunne

I've learned: When you get older, who cares? I don't mince words, I don't hold back. What are you gonna do to me? Fire me? It's been done. Threaten to commit suicide? Done. Take away my show? Done! Not invite to me to the Vanity Fair party? I've never been invited! If I ever saw the invitation, I'd use it as toilet paper. — Joan Rivers

'Vanity Fair' did this grid thing a couple years ago, connecting people who've worked together, and I had the most branches on it or whatever, because I'd worked with so-and-so and so-and-so worked with so-and-so, and I was kind of in the middle. — Bill Hader

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair. — Matthew McConaughey

I was just not cut out to be an American journalist. In England, I could phone my editor and say 'Do you want an interview with X?' and get an immediate yes or no. At Vanity Fair I had to 'pitch ideas' and then go through layers of editors, all of whom asked what my 'angle' was going to be. I have always deeply hated and resented this question. If you have an angle on someone, it means you have already decided what to write before you meet, so you really might as well not bother interviewing them (126). — Lynn Barber

Mr Moss's courtyard is railed in like a cage, lest the gentlemen who are boarding with him should take a fancy to escape from his hospitality. — William Makepeace Thackeray

No, you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you. I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning; that I was a fool, with fond fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and ardour against your little feeble remnant of love. I will bargain no more: I withdraw. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt; how they deny themselves nothing; how jolly and easy they are in their minds. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I am an outsider looking in, absolutely. You're not going to see me at the Academy Awards 'Vanity Fair' party any time soon. I'm not somebody who, no matter where I go, there are paparazzi or any of that nonsense. But I have a little window into that world, and I can enter it and dance around. I want to be the audience's ticket into the party. — Kathy Griffin

In 1990 [Claudette Colbert] wished Vanity Fair readers "a fabulous new decade. I'm praying to make it to 2000. After all, I'll only be 97." She didn't quite make it. — Eve Golden

Peace to thee, kind and selfish, vain and generous old heathen! - We shall see thee no more. Let us hope that Lady Jane supported her kindly, and led her with gentle hand out of the busy struggle of Vanity Fair. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I'm always reading books - as many as there are. I ration myself on them so that I'll always be in supply. — Ernest Hemingway,

I'm not sure if guys are supposed to read Vanity Fair. I feel very metrosexual with it but am not sure it's in my comfort zone. — Mohsin Hamid

The serious Sylvia was agonizing over the execution of the Rosenbergs and McCarthyism; others were delighting to dream over trousseau lingerie at Vanity Fair's showroom. — Elizabeth Winder

And, lastly (I may as well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed by nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," etc., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for is vanity among the other comforts of life. — Benjamin Franklin

The great are deceived if they imagine they have appropriated ambition and vanity to themselves. These notable qualities flourish as notably in a country church and churchyard as in the drawing room or in the closet. Schemes have indeed been laid in the vestry, which would hardly disgrace the conclave. Here is a ministry, and here is an opposition. Here are plots and circumventions, parties and factions equal to those which are to be found in courts. Nor are the women here less practiced in the highest feminine arts than their fair superiors in quality and fortune. Here are prudes and coquettes; here are dressing and ogling, falsehood, envy, malice, scandal -- in short everything which is common to the most splendid assembly or politest circle. — Henry Fielding