Stephen Fry

Generally, we admire the thing we are not.

You don't sit down and write a wish list about the person you are going to fall violently in love with. It just doesn't work like that.

When you get just a complete sense of blackness or void ahead of you, that somehow the future looks an impossible place to be, and the direction you are going seems to have no purpose, there is this word despair which is a very awful thing to feel.

That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand.

No, I love the idea that someone changes. As an actor it's always the thing that you look for. He is someone who starts off bright, cheerful and confident and then has everything taken away from him. It's a wonderful journey to take.

It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.

Having been an actor and a writer for so long - 20 years or so - I felt that it would be daft to go to one's grave without having directed. It's a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.

But happiness is no respecter of persons.

When you've seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault you know why clothing exists.

I think we have all experienced passion that is not in any sense reasonable.

Because, let's face it, I do not get offered the parts that Brad Pitt has just turned down.

Somehow, as a writer, you tend to use words to paper over structural cracks.

There is no particular Socratic or Dimechian or Kantian way to live your life. They don't offer ethical codes and standards by which to live your life.

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

I'm a bit of a coward, and lazy, oddly enough.

But if one could go back in time, I'd love to have been directed by Howard Hawks, who's one of my great heroes. One of the greatest directors there ever was. He directed probably one of the greatest westerns of all time in 'Rio Bravo'.

There is so much we can learn from TV. It's a window on the world.

Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.

If you go looking for loonies and religious fanatics and dropouts and freaks, I dare say you'll find it.

I think the fact that I'm so well known to be gay makes it very difficult to have a convincing relationship with a woman on screen. It wouldn't be at all difficult for me to kiss a woman - I'll kiss a frog if you like.