Quotes from Stephen Fry

Like a Frenchman, far from home, catching a whiff of Gauloise.

The action is played out on the golden horizon between reality and legend, the beguiling penumbra where fable and fact coexist.

Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators

Feelings are not something to which one does or does not have rights.

You think homosexuality is disgusting? Then, it follows, it follows as the night the day, that you find sex disgusting, for there is nothing done between two men or two women that is, by any objective standard, different from that which is done between a man and a woman.

his healing skills] ..lay in the ability to comfort, to comfort in the proper sense, to make strong, to fortify

people who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can't.

The moment when flowers and fruits are at their fullest and ripest is the moment that precedes their fall, their decay, their rot, their death.

Creation at this time, peopled as it was by primal deities whose whole energy and purpose seems to have been directed towards reproduction, was endowed with an astonishing fertility. The soil was blessed with such a fecund richness that one could almost believe that if you planted a pencil it would burst into flower.

Naturally I've known girlies form an attachment to the younger male before now, but in the tennis score of the bedroom most girls in my experience would rather Love Thirty or Love Forty than Love Fifteen. Men, of course, are a whole other issue; they start at Love All and stay there until they're dragged from the court

The Hungarians have a wonderful word,' said Trefusis. 'It is puszipajtás and means roughly someone you know well enough to kiss in the street. They are a demonstrative and affectionate people, the Hungarians, and enthusiastic social kissers. Do you know young Adrian? you might ask and they might reply, I know him, but we're not exactly puszipajtás.

Once, in his first term, Cartwright had been bold enough to ask him why he was clever, what exercises he did to keep his brain fit. Healey had laughed. It's memory, Cartwright, old dear. Memory, the mother of the Muses... at least that's what thingummy said. Who? You know, what's his name, Greek poet chap. Wrote the Theogony... what was he called? Begins with an 'H'. Homer? No, dear. Not Homer, the other one. No, it's gone. Anyway. Memory, that's the key.

Real hot, fierce, flickering, flaming fire to enable them to melt, smelt, roast, toast, boil, broil, fashion and forge;

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.

To expect a convict to have the strength to give up smoking is to expect a leopard to change his spots, become vegetarian and learn to knit, all on the same day.

Hermes, the Psychopomp.

My real dissatisfaction is with my dissatisfaction. How dare I be so discontent? How dare I? Or being discontent why cannot I shut up about it?

It is enough to say that the Greeks thought it was Chaos who, with a massive heave, or a great shrug, or hiccup, vomit or cough, began the long chain of creation that has ended with pelicans and penicillin and toadstools and toads, sea-lions, seals, lions, human beings and daffodils and murder and art and love and confusion and death and madness and biscuits.

We recognize that if we had ever encountered the real demon demigod Achilles, we woul have feared and dreaded him, hated his temper, despised his pride and been repelled by his savagery. But we know too that we could not have helped loving him.

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know.

I get an urge, like a pregnant elephant, to go away and give birth to a book.

Perhaps narcissism is best defined as a need to look on other people as mirrored surfaces who satisfy us only when they reflect back a loving or admiring image of ourselves. When we look into another's eyes, in other words, we are not looking to see who they are, but how we are reflected in their eyes. By this definition, which of us can honestly disown our share of narcissism?

Forget ideas, Mr. Author. What kind of pen do you use?

Princess Diana holds in the threshold for a second longer, checks over her shoulder that her Prince is out of earshot and whispers softly in my ear, 'Sorry to leave early, though secretly I'm quite glad. It's Spitting Image tonight, and I want to watch it in my room. They hate it of course. I absolutely adore it.