Stephen Fry Quotes

British comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

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Sir Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer. He first came to prominence as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984) alongside Laurie, Emma Thompson, and Robbie Coltrane and in Blackadder (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. Since 2011 he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind. In 2025, he was knighted for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity.

Fry's film acting roles include playing his idol Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde (1997), for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor; Inspector Thompson in Robert Altman's murder mystery Gosford Park (2001); and Mr. Johnson in Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship (2016). He has also had roles in the films Chariots of Fire (1981), A Fish Called Wanda (1988), The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), V for Vendetta (2005), and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). He portrays the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and its 2016 sequel, and the Master of Lake-town in the film series adaptation of The Hobbit. Between 2001 and 2017, he hosted the British Academy Film Awards 12 times.

Fry's television roles include Lord Melchett in the BBC television comedy series Blackadder, the title character in the television series Kingdom, as well as recurring guest roles as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the American crime series Bones and Arthur Garrison MP on the Channel 4 period drama It's a Sin. He has also written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which saw him explore his bipolar disorder, and the travel series Stephen Fry in America. He was the longtime host of the BBC television quiz show QI, with his tenure lasting from 2003 to 2016, during which he was nominated for six British Academy Television Awards. He appears frequently on other panel games, such as the radio programmes Just a Minute and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. In 2006, the British public ranked Fry number 9 in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.

From: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Birth Name: Stephen John Fry

Alternative Names: Sir Stephen Fry • Sir Stephen John Fry

From Wikidata (CC0)

This species, the mute swan, became holy to Apollo. In remembrance of the death of the beloved Phaeton the bird is silent all its life until the very moment of its death, when it sings with terrible melancholy its strange and lovely goodbye, its swan song. In honour of Cygnus the young of all swans are called ‘cygnets’.

It is the destiny of children of spirit to soar too close to the sun and fall no matter how many times they are warned of the danger. Some will make it, but many do not.

Wanting to be liked is often a very unlikeable characteristic.

At John Schlesinger's funeral at a synagogue in St John's Wood some years ago the person I stood next to said to me encouragingly, 'Come on, Stephen - you're not singing. Have a go!' 'Believe me, Paul, you don't want me to,' I said. Besides, I was having a much better time listening to him. 'No. Go on!' So I joined in the chorus. 'You're right,' Paul McCartney conceded. 'You can't sing.

His reward is the eternal fame that is both priceless and worthless

Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship’.

Nature admits no hierarchy of beauty or usefulness or importance.

Mankind can live free in a society hemmed in by laws, but we have yet to find a historical example of mankind living free in lawless anarchy.

I’m not even tone deaf, that’s the arse-mothering, fuck-nosed, bugger-sucking wank of the thing.
I’M NOT EVEN TONE FUCKING DEAF. I’m tone DUMB.

How strange is our mortal zest for fame. Perhaps it is the only way humans can be gods. We achieve immortality not through ambrosia and ichor but through history and reputation. Through statues and epic song

There can't be that many individual souls. Not souls like mine. There isn't room. There can't be.

Read it wisely, Little One, for the power of ignorance is great.

He was always doing that these days. Everything he saw became a symbol of his own existence, from a rabbit caught in headlights to raindrops racing down a window-pane. Perhaps it was a sign that he was going to become a poet or a philosopher: the kind of person who, when he stood on the sea-shore, didn't see waves breaking on a beach, but saw the surge of human will or the rhythms of copulation, who didn't hear the sound of the tide but heard the eroding roar of time and the last moaning sigh of humanity fizzing into nothingness. But perhaps it was a sign, he also thought, that he was turning into a pretentious wanker.

"That's alright," said Hugo. "I've got some wine"

Which was about all he seemed to have. He poured out two mugfuls.

"Very nice," said Adrian, sipping appreciatively. "I wonder how they got the cat to sit on the bottle."

"It's cheap, that's the main thing."

What is 'camp'? A much misunderstood word, everyone has their own feel for it. Here is mine:

Camp is not in rugby football.
Camp is not in the Old Testament.
Camp is not in St. Paul.
Camp is not in Latin lessons, though it might be in Greek.
Camp loves colour.
Camp loves light.
Camp takes pleasure in the surface of things.
Camp loves paint as much as it loves paintings.
Camp prefers style to the stylish.
Camp is pale.
Camp is unhealthy.
Camp is not English, damn it.

But …

Camp is not kitsch.
Camp is not drag.
Camp is not nearly so superficial as it would have you believe.
Camp casts out all fear.
Camp is strong.
Camp is healthy.

And, let’s face it …

Camp is queer.