Fry Quotes

My parents were marvelously educated people. ~ Stephen Fry

Ignorance is bliss up to the point that it kills you. ~ Jeffrey Fry

ghastly girl. Might as well move in. I don't know why Wade stands for it, frankly. But, well, he has other fish to fry..." He took another mouthful of salad. "Oh? ~ C.A. Larmer

A quick shallow fry is a great way to transform leftovers, and no more so than in the case of risotto. ~ Yotam Ottolenghi

The late American golfing coach and writer, Harvey Penick, held that any who played golf was his friend – in the politer sense of Arcades ambo, I gather. … I myself hold with Honest Izaak that there is – and that I am a member of – a communion of, if not saints, at least anglers and very honest men, some now with God and others of us yet upon the quiet waters. … The man is a mere brute, and no true angler, whose sport is measured only in fish caught and boasted of. For what purpose do we impose on ourselves limits and conventions if not to make sport of a mere mechanical harvest of protein? The true angler can welcome even a low river and a dry year, and learn of it, and be the better for it, in mind and in spirit. So, No: the hatch is not all that it might be, for if it is warm enough and early with it, it is also in a time of drought; and, No: I don't get to the river as often as I should wish. But these things do not make this a poor year: they are an unlooked-for opportunity to delve yet deeper into the secrets of the river, and grow wise. … Rejoice, then, in all seasons, ye fishers. The world the river is; both you and I, And all mankind, are either fish or fry. We must view it with judicious looks, and get wisdom whilst we may. And to all honest anglers, then, I wish, as our master Izaak wished us long ago, 'a rainy evening to read this following Discourse; and that if he be an honest Angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing. ~ G.M.W. Wemyss

Dale's father edited an English-language newspaper in Bombay and Dale always shouted "Aiee!" when he was in pain. It had amazed me greatly when I first heard him stubbing his toe against the foot of the bed in the dormitory, since I had never imagined that expressions of pain could vary. I had thought "Ouch!" and "Ow!" were the same all over the world. I had suffered a hot and bothered exchange in my first French lesson, for example, when I was told that the French for "Oh!" was "Ah!"
"Then how do they say 'Oh,' sir?"
"They say 'Ah.'"
"Well then, how do they say 'Ah'?"
"Don't be stupid, Fry."
I had sulked for the rest of the lesson. ~ Stephen Fry

Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice. ~ Stephen Fry

Music is often the spark that lights the fire of the soul. ~ Jeffrey Fry

You'll often hear the phrase "science doesn't know everything." Well, of course it doesn't know everything. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean that it knows nothing. ~ Stephen Fry

One of the most unattractive human traits, and so easy to fall into, is resentment at the sudden shared popularity of a previously private pleasure. Which of us hasn't been annoyed when a band, writer, artist or television series that had been a minority interest of ours has suddenly achieved mainstream popularity? When it was at a cult level we moaned at the philistinism of a world that didn't appreciate it, and now that they do appreciate it we're all resentful and dog-in-the-manger about it. ~ Stephen Fry

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 ... ~ Stephen Fry

Climate change is not the fault of man. It's Mother Nature's way. And sucking greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is too limited a solution. We have to be prepared for fire or ice, for fry or freeze. We have to be prepared for change. ~ Howard Bloom

Everyone else new you ever meet, and this continues through life, is stronger than you are, knows the system better and sees right through to the back of your brain and finds what they see to be wholly inadequate. Everyone you encounter carries, as it were, a huge club behind their back, while all you hold behind yours is a weedy cotton-bud. ~ Stephen Fry

BENDER: Dying sucks butt! How do you living beings cope with mortality? LEELA: Violent outbursts. AMY: General sluttiness. FRY: Thanks to denial, I'm immortal! BENDER: Damn it, I'm supposed to be perfect. Inspector 5 gave me his blessing! [He pulls out his scrap of paper and looks at it.] How could he bring me into this world knowing I'm gonna die? ZOIDBERG: So you wish you were never born, maybe? BENDER: Yes, anything less than immortality is a complete waste of time! ZOIDBERG: Then suicide it is. Step into my office. I'll give you a nice Kervorking. This ~ Courtland Lewis

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. ~ Stephen Fry

But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, peanuts, compared to what the immigrant fears - dissolution, disappearance. ~ Zadie Smith

Kronos had seen by now that his wife was expecting and he readied himself for the happy day when he could consume the sixth of his children. He was taking no chances. ~ Stephen Fry

How can I tell you what I think until I've heard what I'm going to say? ~ Stephen Fry

Wisdom is probably the ability to cope. That's why someone who has to walk seven miles every day to get water for their children can be wiser than someone sitting behind a desk in Wall Street. ~ Stephen Fry

At least 260 species of animal have been noted exhibiting homosexual behavior but only one species of animal ever, so far as we know, has exhibited homophobic behavior - and that's the human being. ~ Stephen Fry

The Screelings are loose and the Keeper may win.
His assassins have come to rip off your skin.
Golden eyes will see you if you try to run.
The screelings will get you and laugh like it's fun.

Walk away slow or they'll tear you apart,
and laugh all day long as they rip out your heart.
Golden eyes will see you if you try to stand still.
The screelings will get you, for the Keeper they kill.

Hack 'em up, chop 'em up, cut 'em to bits,
or else they will get you while laughing in fits.
If the screelings don't get you the Keeper will try,
to reach out and touch you, your skin he will fry.

Your mind he will flail, your soul he will take.
You'll sleep with the dead, for life you'll forsake.
You'll die with the Keeper till the end of time.
He hates that you live, your life is the crime.

The screelings might get you, it says so in text.
If screelings don't get you the Keeper is next,
lest he who's born true can fight for life's bond.
And that one is marked; he's the pebble in the pond. ~ Terry Goodkind

And I maintain, Detective Halse," said Inspector Fry doggedly, "that the civil unrest which allowing this message to remain in view would foment is against the principles of conscience and of British decency. Are you against the principles of British decency, Detective? ~ Lyndsay Faye

Your explanation is good, but your herring doesn't fry, as we say in Ramaldah, he exploded. ~ Andrew Ashling

It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with. ~ Stephen Fry

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. ~ Stephen Fry

You'd better put sunblock on that skeleton head of yours. You're gonna fry. -Bobby ~ D.J. MacHale

That's how it is, Rocamadour: in Paris we're like fungus, we grow on the railings of staircases, in dark rooms with greasy smells, where people make love all the time and then fry some eggs and put on Vivaldi records, light cigarettes ... and outside there are all sorts of things, the windows open onto the air and it all begins with a sparrow or a gutter, it rains a lot here, rocamadour, much more than in the country, and things get rusty ... we don't have many clothes, we get along with so few, a good overcoat, some shoes to keep the rain out, we're very dirty, everybody is dirty and good-looking in Paris, Rocamadour, the beds smell of night and deep sleep, dust and books underneath. ~ Julio Cortazar

To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too. ~ Stephen Fry

A man convinced against his will, stands opposed ever still. A man convinced he is right, gives the effort twice the fight. ~ Jeffrey Fry

Having more data does not always give you the power to make better decisions. ~ Jeffrey Fry

I had an honest, ordered, respectable and unexciting life to look forward to. I had sown my wild oats and it was time to grow sage. Or so I imagined. ~ Stephen Fry

I met too frankly preposterous, if it weren't for their banal evil, politicians and pastors who told knowing lies about the evils of homosexuality in order to attract bigger flocks to their churches and more votes and power to their corrupt councils. LGBT people seem to be being scapegoated more and more just as at the same time in more enlightened countries more and more freedom to express themselves, marry, be given official intersex status and so on is offered. ~ Stephen Fry

Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me. ~ Stephen Fry

Supporting the English cricket team is like supporting a second division football team. I support Norwich City football team and when they lose I really don't mind because I expect them to; but when we win I'm so happy - much happier than any Arsenal supporter could ever be. ~ Stephen Fry

We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators. ~ Stephen Fry

The moon is nothing But a circumambulating aphrodisiac Divinely subsidized to provoke the world Into a rising birth-rate ~ Christopher Fry

Burn, burn tree and fern!
Shrivel and scorch! A fizzling torch
To light the night for our delight,
Ya hey!

Bake and toast 'em, fry and roast 'em!
till beards blaze, and eyes glaze;
till hair smells and skins crack,
fat melts, and bones black
in cinders lie
beneath the sky!
So dwarves shall die,
and light the night for our delight,
Ya hey!
Ya-harri-hey!
Ya hoy! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

We all know that drugs, alcohol and tobacco are Bad, but work, we are brought up to believe, is Good. As a result the world is full of families who are angry at being abandoned and breadwinners who are even more angry because their hours of labour are not sufficiently appreciated. ~ Stephen Fry

It was extremely important to show that Wilde's sexuality was not just some intellectual idea. It was real, and it was about the human body. To just have mentioned it and not shown it would have been, I think, peculiar and wrong. ~ Stephen Fry

What a poor life I have had if I am only remembered for the amount of money I made. ~ Jeffrey Fry

It is remarkable that a fist-gnawingly dire England performance still has the power to shock, when in some ways this one had all the exquisite unpredictability of Norman Wisdom approaching a banana skin in the immediate vicinity of a swimming pool...
The England shirt is the precise opposite of a superhero costume, turning men with extraordinary abilities into mild-mannered guys next door. Were Stephen Fry to pull it on, he would struggle to string a sentence together. Were Lucian Freud to slip it over his head he would turn his easel round to reveal a childlike scribble of a cat. ~ Marina Hyde

Many people would no more think of entering journalism than the sewage business - which at least does us all some good. ~ Stephen Fry

In Russia there is no philosophy, but philosophize everything, even the small fry. ~ Anton Chekhov

Trust is tough since it involves that quixotic mix of integrity, vulnerability, and intimacy. But trust anyway. ~ Jeffrey Fry

God, it was hot! Forget about frying an egg on the sidewalk; this kind of heat would fry an egg inside the chicken. ~ Rachel Caine

Stephen Fry is a master exponent of the English tongue. Some people might think that he is the most irritating man in Britain, but my wife and I love him all the same. ~ David Tang

No-one who has a real understanding of the art of painting attaches any importance to what we call the subject of a picture - what is represented. To one who feels the language of pictorial form, all depends on how it is presented, nothing on what. ~ Roger Fry

I'm afraid I was very much the traditionalist. I went down on one knee and dictated a proposal which my secretary faxed over straight away. ~ Stephen Fry

1725. The year of The Tour Seasons. The year that Peter the Great became less so, in that he died. ~ Stephen Fry

A university is not, thank heavens, a place for vocational instruction, it has nothing to do with training for a working life and career, it is a place for education, something quite different. ~ Stephen Fry

Chained in a cell, got my own private hell. Preacher crucifies me, warden wants to fry me. ~ Alice Cooper

We hold on STEVE's still smiling face as MICHAEL passes by. STEVE's eyes follow MICHAEL out of the room and then the smile disappears.
It is replaced by a look of hunger and desolation. ~ Stephen Fry

At two-tenths the speed of light, dust and atoms might not do significant damage even in a voyage of 40 years, but the faster you go, the worse it is
space begins to become abrasive. When you begin to approach the speed of light, hydrogen atoms become cosmic-ray particles, and they will fry the crew ... So 60,000 kilometers per second may be the practical speed limit for space travel. ~ Isaac Asimov

You should rule a great country As you would fry a small fish- With the least turning. ~ Laozi

Something changes in the brain when you know surviving the next few minutes is determined solely by your ability to go unnoticed. ~ RaeLynn Fry

Do not be a one in a million person, be a once in a lifetime individual. ~ Jeffrey Fry

In a dung heap, even a plastic bead can gleam like a sapphire. ~ Stephen Fry

Let us inquire what glory there was in an omnipotent being torturing forever a puny little creature who could in no way defend himself? Would it be to the glory of a man to fry ants? ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

They'll fry you, bleach you, change you! Crack you, flake you away until you're nothing but a husband, a working man, the one with the money who pays so they can come sit in there devouring their evil chocalates! Do you think you could control them? ~ Ray Bradbury

I'm not a big chicken or meat eater, but sometimes I'll eat it if it's locally raised. The family dinner will be stir-fry, or we'll roll our own sushi with brown rice, spinach, salmon, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and seaweed. The kids love it! ~ Alysia Reiner

Now behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers in the streets rocked to sleep by the sea, see the titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and buttontops, bags and bones, ash and rind and dandruff and nailparings, saliva and snowflakes and moulted feathers of dreams, the wrecks and sprats and shells and fishbones, whale-juice and moonshine and small salt fry dished up by the hidden sea. ~ Dylan Thomas

There were people who believed their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existance of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed by their house, by the malice of trade unions, by the power of callous employers, by the refusal of the health service to take their condition seriously, by communism, by capitalism, by atheism, by anything, in fact, but their own futile, weak-minded failure to get a fucking grip. ~ Stephen Fry

As a blacksmith uses heat to temper steel, so should a trial by fire strengthen one's mettle. ~ Jeffrey Fry

Trust is a foundation built one brick at a time. ~ Jeffrey Fry

For many years Minos has been lucky to have in his court the most gifted inventor, the most skilled artificer outside of the Olympian forges of Hephaestus. His name is Daedalus and he is capable of fashioning moving objects out of metal, bronze, wood, ivory and gemstones. He has mastered the art of tightly coiling leaves of steel into powerful springs, which control wheels and chains to form intricate and marvellous mechanisms that mark the passage of the hours with great precision and accuracy, or control the levels of watercourses. There is nothing this cunning man cannot contrive in his workshop. There are moving statues there, men and women animated by his skill, boxes that play music and devices that can awaken him in the morning. Even if only half the stories of what Daedalus can achieve are true then you can be certain that no more cunning and clever an inventor, architect and craftsman has ever walked this earth. ~ Stephen Fry

But happiness is no respecter of persons. ~ Stephen Fry

I'm a fry lover. ~ Michelle Obama

We'll take what the other team gives us. We'll scratch where it itches. ~ Hayden Fry

Because it's not perfect, let's not bother."
That's crazy! Even if we take three steps forward and two and a half back it's still going half a foot forward. ~ Stephen Fry

A cut glass English accent can fool unsuspecting Americans into detecting a brilliance that isn't there ~ Stephen Fry

We have given you a world as contradictory as a female, as cabbalistic as a male, a conscienceless hermaphrodite who plays heaven off against hell, hell off against heaven, revolving in the ballroom of the skies glittering with conflict as diamonds: we have wasted paradox and mystery on you when all you ask us for is cause and effect! ~ Christopher Fry

That's enough!" Holly scrambled out of her seat, too. "My three-year-old behaves better than all of you." She looked down at LJ, who was trying to stuff a fry up his nostril. "And that's not saying a whole lot. ~ Nicole Williams

The short answer to that is 'no.' The long answer is 'fuck no. ~ Stephen Fry

Poetry is not made to be sucked up like a child's milkshake, it is much better sipped like a precious malt whisky. ~ Stephen Fry

Dreams were told to priests on the morning after an overnight stay (known as an 'incubation') and Asclepius himself often manifested to patients. Especially, I believe, to those who paid the most. ~ Stephen Fry

Having a great intellect is no path to being happy. ~ Stephen Fry

Perhaps, the highest pleasure in art is identical with the highest pleasure in scientific theory. The emotion which accompanies the clear recognition of unity in a complex seems so similar in art and in science that it is difficult not to suppose that they are psychologically the same. It is, as it were, the final stage of both a processes.This unity-emotion in science supervenes upon a process of pure mechanical reasoning; in art it supervenes upon a process of which emotion has all along been an essential concomitant. ~ Roger Fry

lithographic
landscape beyond the forgotten

ocean of the innermost ear

where one boy, with a wolf for a heart, wants
to eat the songbird nesting inside the other ~ John D. Fry

Though the customer is always right, there are some customers you do not want. ~ Jeffrey Fry

But, I fear I spend far too little time apologising for or feeling ashamed about things which really do merit sincere apology and outright contrition.
•Failing to imagine what it is like to be someone else.
•Pissing my life away.
•Dishonesty with self and others.
•Neglecting to pick up the phone or write letters.
•Not connecting made or processed objects
•with their provenance.
•Judging without facts.
•Using influence over others for my own ends.
•Causing pain. ~ Stephen Fry

There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it's like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you're afraid of entering it. It's just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It's like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you. ~ Stephen Fry

Death is a fisherman, the world we see His fish-pond is, and we the fishes be; His net some general sickness; howe'er he Is not so kind as other fishers be; For if they take one of the smaller fry, They throw him in again, he shall not die: But death is sure to kill all he can get, And all is fish with him that comes to net. ~ Benjamin Franklin

The biggest challenge facing the great teachers and communicators of history is not to teach history itself, nor even the lessons of history, but why history matters. How to ignite the first spark of the will o'the wisp, the Jack o'lantern, the ignis fatuus [foolish fire] beloved of poets, which lights up one source of history and then another, zigzagging across the marsh, connecting and linking and writing bright words across the dark face of the present. There's no phrase I can come up that will encapsulate in a winning sound-bite why history matters. We know that history matters, we know that it is thrilling, absorbing, fascinating, delightful and infuriating, that it is life. Yet I can't help wondering if it's a bit like being a Wagnerite; you just have to get used to the fact that some people are never going to listen. ~ Stephen Fry

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore. ~ Stephen Fry

Great leadership makes ordinary people into extraordinary people. ~ Jeffrey Fry

I now accept that it is looking increasingly likely that Tiger Woods is, in fact, straight. ~ Stephen Fry

Music offers the chords that binds us together. ~ Jeffrey Fry

So many times in life we're faced with a choice: when a task becomes super difficult, will we flip out and quit, or will we stay focused and keep fighting?". "With strong faith in God and some serious determination, every dream is possible - especially if your mama refuses to let you fly home, fry chicken, and give up ~ Gabrielle Douglas

not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the way to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers
entered.
he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the
food arrived.
the meal was
particularly
good
and the
coffee.
the waitress was
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a natural
humor which came
from her.
the fry cook said
crazy things.
the dishwasher.
in back,
laughed, a good
clean
pleasant
laugh.
the young man watched
the snow through the
windows.
he wanted to stay
in that cafe
forever.
the curious feeling
swam through him
that everything
was
beautiful
there,
that it would always
stay beautiful
there.
then the bus driver
told the passengers
that it was time
to board.
the young man
thought, I'll just sit
here, I'll just stay
here.
but then
he rose and followed
the others into the
bus.
he found his seat
and looked at the cafe
through the bus
window.
then the bus moved
off, down a curve,
downward, out of
the hills.
the young man
looked straight
forward.Charles Bukowski

Bukowski Poetry