Stephen Fry is an actor, writer, television and radio host, civil rights activist, educator, scholar, bandleader and national treasure in the UK. Our selection contains the brightest and most unbanal quotes from his books and interviews.
Stephen Fry was in prison for fraud, abused cocaine, made at least two confirmed suicide attempts, suffers from bipolar affective disorder. He knows firsthand about the ups and downs of the soul.
1. The main thing I would like to be sure of is that in our world above talent, above energy, concentration, purposefulness and everything else, there is kindness. The more kindness and cheerfulness in the world (which can be considered something like a friendly aunt or uncle kindness), the this world is always better. And all the big words — virtue, justice, truth — are dwarfs in comparison with the greatness of kindness.
(From an interview with the youth project Splashlife, 2010)
2. Stop figuring out what successful people have in common, take a better look at what unites all unsuccessful people: they talk only about themselves all the time. «I need to do this, I need that …» — the first two words — «I need to.» That is why no one loves them, and therefore they will never get what they want, because of their eternal “I need, me, me, me, mine” …
Be interested in others, use your eyes to look at the world around you, and not at yourself, and then you will fit in, become interesting, and people will be drawn to you. They are drawn to the warmth and charm that those who are genuinely interested in others radiate.
(From an interview with the youth project Splashlife, 2010)
Stop feeling sorry for yourself is not easy, it’s damn hard. Because we always feel sorry for ourselves
3. Many times I put my hand to my chest to feel how under her asthmatic trembling the motor of the heart beats, the lungs heave, the blood circulates. In these sensations, I was struck by how great the power that I possess. Not magic, but real power. The strength to simply live and resist difficulties is already enough, but I felt that I also had the strength to create, multiply, delight, entertain and transform.
(From the book “Moab is my washing bowl”, Phantom Press, 1997)
4. Once I almost published a book in the genre of useful advice. It would be called «Stephen Fry — on how to become happy: success is guaranteed!». People who bought it would find that it consists of blank pages, and only on the first one it says: «Stop feeling sorry for yourself — and you will be happy.» And the rest of the pages are intended for drawings or writing down interesting ideas — that’s what a book would be like, and the pure truth.
It makes you want to exclaim: “Oh, how simple everything is!” But no, in fact, stop feeling sorry for yourself is not at all easy, it’s damn hard. Because we always feel sorry for ourselves, after all, the whole Book of Genesis is exactly about this.
(From a speech on BBC-4, 2011)
Depression, anxiety and apathy are as real as the weather and just as beyond our control.
5. It sometimes helps me to think about my mood and feelings, the way we think about the weather. Here are some obvious facts: the weather is real; it cannot be changed by simply wishing it to change. If it’s dark and it’s raining, then it’s dark and it’s raining, and we can’t fix it. Dusk and rain can last for two weeks in a row. But someday it will be sunny again. It is not in our power to hasten this day, but the sun will appear, it will come. It’s the same with mood, I think. It is wrong to think that our feelings are illusory, no, they are quite real.
Depression, anxiety and apathy are as real as the weather and just as beyond our control. And no one is to blame for this. But they will pass, they will certainly pass. Just as we come to terms with the weather, we also have to come to terms with how life sometimes seems. “Today is a nasty day,” we state, and this is a completely realistic approach that helps us acquire something like a mental umbrella. “Hey hey, it’s raining here, it’s not my fault and there’s nothing I can do about it, I have to wait it out. And tomorrow the sun may well come out, and then I won’t miss my own.”
(From a letter to a depressed reader, 2009)
6. Some believe that their self-realization is hindered by the many Asians in England, the existence of the royal family, the intensity of traffic under their windows, the malignity of trade unions, the power of insensitive employers, the unwillingness of the health services to take their condition seriously, communism, capitalism, atheism, whatever, in fact, except for their own vain and thoughtless inability to pull themselves together.
(From the novel Heaven’s Tennis Balls, Phantom Press, 2012)
7. I have a theory: much of the trouble in our stupid and intoxicating world stems from the fact that we constantly apologize for things for which we should not apologize at all. But for what follows, we consider it not necessary to apologize. […] I should ask for forgiveness for treachery, neglect, deceit, cruelty, lack of kindness, vanity and baseness, but not for the impulses inspired by my genitals, and certainly not for the impulses of the heart.
I can regret these impulses, mourn bitterly about them, and at times scold them, curse and send them to hell, but I can’t apologize, provided that they do no harm to anyone. A culture that requires people to ask for forgiveness for something they are not guilty of — that’s a good definition of tyranny for you, as I understand it.
(From the book “Moab is my washing bowl”, Phantom Press, 1997)
It is the useless things that make life worth living and full of threats at the same time: wine, love, art, beauty.
8. Paradoxically, self-hatred is one of the main symptoms of clinical narcissism. It’s only by telling ourselves and the world how much we hate ourselves that we secure the cascade of praise and expressions of admiration we think we deserve.
(From the book «More Fool Me Again» («More Fool Me», 2014)
9. I’m probably happier now than I was before, and yet I have to admit that I’d trade all of myself, the way I’ve become, for being you, the perpetually miserable, nervous, wild, confused, and desperate 16-year-old Steven. Angry, anxious and awkward, but alive. Because you know how to feel, and being able to feel is more important than how you feel. The mortification of the soul is the only unforgivable crime, and if happiness can do anything, it is to disguise the mortification of the soul.
(From a letter to an imaginary 16-year-old self, 2009)
10. If you think about it, love has no purpose — this is what makes it so majestic. Sex has a purpose, in the sense of relaxation or, sometimes, reproduction, but love, like any art, in the words of Oscar Wilde, is useless. It is the useless things that make life worth living and full of threats at the same time: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them, life is safe, but not worth worrying about.
(From the book “Moab is my washing bowl”, Phantom Press, 1997)