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Stephen Fry Quotes

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.

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
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...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.
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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]
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Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
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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.
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Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable.
From Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold
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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.
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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
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Compromise is a stalling between two fools.
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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
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Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.
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People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t
From Moab Is My Washpot
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An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.
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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.
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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)
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I don't need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.
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Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.
From Moab Is My Washpot
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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
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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
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Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.
From The Fry Chronicles
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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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
...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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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]
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable.
From Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Compromise is a stalling between two fools.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t
From Moab Is My Washpot
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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)
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.
From The Fry Chronicles
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
...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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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]
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable.
From Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Compromise is a stalling between two fools.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t
From Moab Is My Washpot
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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)
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.
From Moab Is My Washpot
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.
From The Fry Chronicles
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote