quotes by Stephen Fry

"An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."
— Stephen Fry

"If I had a large amount of money I should certainly found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases and yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily about our ears."
— Stephen Fry (Paperweight)

"It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue."
— Stephen Fry

"I am a lover of truth, a worshiper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance."
— Stephen Fry

"Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me."
— Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot)

"The alarm in the morning? Well, I have an old tape of Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a perfectly transcendent version in Shubert's seventh symphony. And I've rigged it up so that at exactly 7:30 every morning it falls from the ceiling onto my face."
— Stephen Fry

"Compromise is a stalling between two fools."
— Stephen Fry

"No adolescent ever wants to be understood, which is why they complain about being misunderstood all the time."
— Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot)

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy."
— Stephen Fry

"If you have been, I'm glad you've stopped."
— Stephen Fry

"The biggest challenge facing the great teachers and communicators of history is not to teach history itself, nor even the lessons of history, but why history matters. How to ignite the first spark of the will o'the wisp, the Jack o'lantern, the ignis fatuus [foolish fire:] beloved of poets, which lights up one source of history and then another, zigzagging across the marsh, connecting and linking and writing bright words across the dark face of the present. There's no phrase I can come up that will encapsulate in a winning sound-bite why history matters. We know that history matters, we know that it is thrilling, absorbing, fascinating, delightful and infuriating, that it is life. Yet I can't help wondering if it's a bit like being a Wagnerite; you just have to get used to the fact that some people are never going to listen."
— Stephen Fry (Making History)

"... literary studies were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection. Even movies, which I love more than anything, more than life itself, they even do it with movies these days."
— Stephen Fry (Making History)

"My first words, as I was being born... I looked up at my mother and said, "that's the last time I'm going up one of those."
— Stephen Fry

"Estate agents: like them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them."
— Stephen Fry

"A month's salary, deep regret, the telephone number of some foul rehab clinic and my lance was free."
— Stephen Fry (The Hippopotamus)

"I also knew that he was the kind of anile little runt who, in foyers and theatre bars the West End over, can be heard bleating into their gin and tonics, "I go to the theatre to be entertained."
— Stephen Fry (The Hippopotamus)

"We don't stop talking about how the world might be better just because we have no chance of making it to Prime Minister. We are all politicians. We are all artists. In an open society everything the mind and hands can achieve is our birthright. It is up to us to claim it."
— Stephen Fry (The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within)

"I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform."
— Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot)

"I flicked my eyes over to Steve again and saw him straighten. He would need a diversion just to start.

“Explanations?” I bellowed. “Explanations? There’s your explanation…there!” I stabbed a finger dramatically towards the far corner of the room.

Pathetic, really. I mean, talk about the oldest trick in the book. But it’s a good book, and the trick would have been cut from subsequent editions if it didn’t sometimes work."
— Stephen Fry (Making History)

"Like a Frenchman, far from home, catching a whiff of Gauloise."
— Stephen Fry (The Stars' Tennis Balls)