Stephen Fry Quotes

“The short answer to that is 'no.' The long answer is 'fuck no.”
― Stephen Fry

“Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.”
― Stephen Fry

“Great writers, I discovered, were not to be bowed down before and worshipped, but embraced and befriended. Their names resounded through history not because they had massive brows and thought deep incomprehensible thoughts, but because they opened windows in the mind, they put their arms round you and showed you things you always knew but never dared to believe. Even if their names were terrifyingly foreign and intellectual sounding, Dostoevsky, Baudelaire or Cavafy, they turned out to be charming and wonderful and quite unalarming after all.”
― Stephen Fry, The Library Book

“Seriousness is no more a guarantee of truth, insight, authenticity or probity, than humour is a guarantee of superficiality and stupidity.”
― Stephen Fry

“Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could ever devise".”
― Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot

“There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it’s like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you’re afraid of entering it. It’s just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It’s like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you.”
― Stephen Fry

“...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.”
― Stephen Fry

“Lies, fictions and untrue suppositions can create new human truths which build technology, art, language, everything that is distinctly of Man. The word "stone" for instance is not a stone, it is an oral pattern of vocal, dental and labial sounds or a scriptive arrangement of ink on a white surface, but man pretends that it is actually the thing it refers to. Every time he wishes to tell another man about a stone he can use the word instead of the thing itself. The word bodies forth the object in the mind of the listener and both speaker and listener are able to imagine a stone without seeing one. All the qualities of stone can be metaphorically and metonymically expressed. "I was stoned, stony broke, stone blind, stone cold sober, stonily silent," oh, whatever occurs. More than that, a man can look at a stone and call it a weapon, a paperweight, a doorstep, a jewel, an idol. He can give it function, he can possess it.”
― Stephen Fry, The Liar

“Anger fed him and clothed him and he owed it much.”
― Stephen Fry, Revenge

“You have already achieved the English-Language poet's most important goal: you can read, Write and speak English well enough to understand this sentence.”
― Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

“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)”
― Stephen Fry

“I believe that poetry is a primal impulse within us all.”
― Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

“We hold on STEVE's still smiling face as MICHAEL passes by. STEVE's eyes follow MICHAEL out of the room and then the smile disappears.

It is replaced by a look of hunger and desolation.”
― Stephen Fry, Making History

“MICHAEL
(standing up and stretching)
Gosh, Steve. I don't know how to thank you.

STEVE
(also standing)
Hey, don't thank me. It means you haven't got any excuse now not to get back to work.

They are facing each other. STEVE is looking into MICHAEL's eyes.

MICHAEL
(embarrassed)
So...


STEVE
(also slightly awkward)
Right. Well, I guess I'd better be...

MICHAEL, surprising himself, silently pulls STEVE towards him. He puts a hand on his cheek.

STEVE stares at MICHAEL, unable to move. The feeling of MICHAEL's hand on his cheek is like an electric shock.

MICHAEL
(whispering, hardly audible)
I mean it, really... thanks.
He leans forward and kisses STEVE on the lips.

STEVE puts his arms round MICHAEL's neck and holds him tightly.

MICHAEL suddenly ends the kiss and pulls away. He goes to the door, opens it and says, in a clear voice.

MICHAEL
Goodnight, then, Steve.

STEVE
(disappointed, hurt)
Right... sure. G'night.

MICHAEL immediately closes the door loudly, before STEVE has had a chance to leave. MICHAEL puts a finger to his lips.

STEVE suddenly understands. He smiles in radiant relief, pure love and joy in his eyes.

They embrace.”
― Stephen Fry, Making History

“Humanists do not claim to know, we just ask you to be very wary of those who do claim to know. Who told them? What does their knowledge mean? Why should you trust them? Above all, don't take my word for it either. Don't take anybody's word for it. Find out for yourselves.”
― Andrew Copson & Alice Roberts