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Stephen Fry

Actor/Performer

Stephen Fry is a celebrated British actor, writer, and comedian known for his intellectual wit and deep insight into human nature. His words often blend humor with wisdom, offering reflections on life, love, and the complexities of the modern world. The following quotes capture his unique perspective, sharp intellect, and passion for creativity and authenticity.

NOT YET RATED▼
There were people who believed their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existance of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed by their house, by the malice of trade unions, by the power of callous employers, by the refusal of the health service to take their condition seriously, by communism, by capitalism, by atheism, by anything, in fact, but their own futile, weak-minded failure to get a fucking grip.
From Revenge
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
...Catholic versus Protestant, essentially. It's that kind of fight. ... And it goes on to this day. Will we never learn? Who knows? Religion. Shit it.
Topic: Religion
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."

[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again. Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am today -- whatever that may be. In my teenage years, his writings awoke me to the possibilities of language. His rhythms, tropes, tricks and mannerisms are deep within me.
But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable.
From Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.

Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Entirely in accordance with what education is supposed to be. Education is the sum of what students teach each other in between lectures and seminars. You sit in each other's rooms and drink coffee - I suppose it would be vodka and Red Bull now - you share enthusiasms, you talk a lot of wank about politics, religion, art and the cosmos and then you go to bed, alone or together according to taste. I mean, how else do you learn anything, how else do you take your mind for a walk?
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Education
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Compromise is a stalling between two fools.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Philosophical
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.
Topic: Inspirational, Philosophical
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Happiness
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
There are times when I'm doing QI and I'm going, 'Ha ha, yeah, yeah,' and inside I'm going 'I want to fucking die. I … want … to … fucking … die.'
(Source : RHLSTP #18 - @87min32s)
Topic: Death
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
I don't need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Education
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Death
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Inspirational
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Happiness
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
There were people who believed their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existance of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed by their house, by the malice of trade unions, by the power of callous employers, by the refusal of the health service to take their condition seriously, by communism, by capitalism, by atheism, by anything, in fact, but their own futile, weak-minded failure to get a fucking grip.
From Revenge
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
...Catholic versus Protestant, essentially. It's that kind of fight. ... And it goes on to this day. Will we never learn? Who knows? Religion. Shit it.
Topic: Religion
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."

[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again. Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am today -- whatever that may be. In my teenage years, his writings awoke me to the possibilities of language. His rhythms, tropes, tricks and mannerisms are deep within me.
But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable.
From Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.

Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Entirely in accordance with what education is supposed to be. Education is the sum of what students teach each other in between lectures and seminars. You sit in each other's rooms and drink coffee - I suppose it would be vodka and Red Bull now - you share enthusiasms, you talk a lot of wank about politics, religion, art and the cosmos and then you go to bed, alone or together according to taste. I mean, how else do you learn anything, how else do you take your mind for a walk?
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Education
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Compromise is a stalling between two fools.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Philosophical
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.
Topic: Inspirational, Philosophical
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Happiness
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
There are times when I'm doing QI and I'm going, 'Ha ha, yeah, yeah,' and inside I'm going 'I want to fucking die. I … want … to … fucking … die.'
(Source : RHLSTP #18 - @87min32s)
Topic: Death
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
I don't need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Education
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Death
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Inspirational
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Happiness
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
There were people who believed their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existance of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed by their house, by the malice of trade unions, by the power of callous employers, by the refusal of the health service to take their condition seriously, by communism, by capitalism, by atheism, by anything, in fact, but their own futile, weak-minded failure to get a fucking grip.
From Revenge
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
...Catholic versus Protestant, essentially. It's that kind of fight. ... And it goes on to this day. Will we never learn? Who knows? Religion. Shit it.
Topic: Religion
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."

[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again. Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am today -- whatever that may be. In my teenage years, his writings awoke me to the possibilities of language. His rhythms, tropes, tricks and mannerisms are deep within me.
But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable.
From Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.

Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Life
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Entirely in accordance with what education is supposed to be. Education is the sum of what students teach each other in between lectures and seminars. You sit in each other's rooms and drink coffee - I suppose it would be vodka and Red Bull now - you share enthusiasms, you talk a lot of wank about politics, religion, art and the cosmos and then you go to bed, alone or together according to taste. I mean, how else do you learn anything, how else do you take your mind for a walk?
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Education
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Compromise is a stalling between two fools.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Philosophical
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.
Topic: Inspirational, Philosophical
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Happiness
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
There are times when I'm doing QI and I'm going, 'Ha ha, yeah, yeah,' and inside I'm going 'I want to fucking die. I … want … to … fucking … die.'
(Source : RHLSTP #18 - @87min32s)
Topic: Death
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
I don't need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Funny
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Education
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Death
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Topic: Inspirational
Stephen Fry
NOT YET RATED▼
Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.
From The Fry Chronicles
Topic: Happiness
Stephen Fry