{"author":"Stephen Fry","author_id":"Stephen+Fry","total_quotes":86,"quotes":[{"text":"Forget ideas, Mr. Author. What kind of pen do you use?","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["creative-process","literary-technique","writing-process"],"id":91,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"I was at a dinner party many years ago,sitting along from Tom Stoppard, who in those days smoked not just between courses,but between mouthfuls. An American woman watched in disbelief.'And you so intelligent!'Excuse me?' said tom'Knowing those things are going to kill you' she said 'and still you do it.'How differently I might behave' Tom said, 'if immortality were an option.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["immortality","smoking","witty"],"id":3578,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"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.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["woman","kiss","me "],"id":4851,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"... Our language, tiger, our language: hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas... And yet, oh, and yet, we, all of us, spend all our days saying to each other the same things time after weary time: 'I love you,' 'Don't go in there,' 'Get out,' 'You have no right to say that,' 'Stop it,' 'Why should I,' 'That hurt,' 'Help,' 'Marjorie is dead.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["boring-people","fry","words"],"id":5682,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '. Self pity will destroy relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And it's so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this, only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things. And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice.I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["americans","depression","depression-humor","happiness","marriage-advice","morality","narcissism","oscar-wilde","pride","relationships","self-help","self-improvement","self-pity","sin","sins","the-key-to-happiness","vice"],"id":5960,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"Lectures broke into one's day and were clearly a terrible waste of time, necessary no doubt if you were reading law or medicine or some other vocational subject, but in the case of English, the natural thing to do was talk a lot, listen to music, drink coffee and wine, read books, and go to plays, perhaps be in plays….","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["english","humour","pretentiousness","university"],"id":6608,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"I am a lover of truth, a worshiper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["freedom","language","tolerance","truth"],"id":8868,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"Today it was commerce that Europe valued and it was the businessmen who, having exploited what the scientists and thechnologits had done for the world, now reaped the rewards.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["business","capitalism","commerce","science"],"id":18666,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["writing-life"],"id":34151,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["advice","depression","friendship","life","self-help"],"id":35642,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":86,"pages":9,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}