Moab Is My Washpot

by Stephen Fry

We keep our insignificant blemishes so that we can blame them for our larger defects.

The trouble with doing a thing for cosmetic reasons is that one always ends up with a cosmetic result, and cosmetic results, as we know from inspecting rich American women, are ludicrous, embarrassing and horrific.

Just as it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, so it is the belief in shamefulness that is the root of all misery.

There is simply no limit to the tyrannical snobbery that otherwise decent people can descend into when it comes to music.

It is one thing to build sanitation systems that inhibit the breeding of unhealthy bacteria and bacilli, but it is another to build educational systems that inhibit the breeding of unhealthy ideas and beliefs.

A culture that demands people apologise for something that is not their fault: that is as good a definition of a tyranny as I can think of.

It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.

Sex without smiling is as sickly and base as vodka and tonic without ice.