It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but…

It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.

Sourced, Moab is My Washpot (autobiography, 1997)

Other Stephen Fry Quotes

When you’ve seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault you know why clothing exists. - View Quote Details on When you’ve seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault…
I have always disbelieved that Sicilian saying about revenge being a dish best served cold. I feel that–don’t you?–when I see blinking, quivering octogenarian Nazi war criminals being led away in chains. Why not then? It’s too late now. I want to see them taken back in time and punished then…Blame, certainly, is a dish only edible when served fresh and warm. Old blames, grudges and scores congeal and curdle and cause the most terrible indigestion. - View Quote Details on I have always disbelieved that Sicilian saying about revenge being…
(On libraries) What’s great about them is that anybody can go into them and find a book and borrow it free of charge and read it. They don’t have to steal it from a bookshop… You know when you’re young, you’re growing up, they’re almost sexually exciting places because books are powerhouses of knowledge, and therefore they’re kind of slightly dark and dangerous. You see books that kind of make you go ‘Oh!’ - View Quote Details on (On libraries) What’s great about them is that anybody can…
LSD reveals the whatness of things, their quiddity, their essence. The wateriness of water is suddenly revealed to you, the carpetness of carpets, the woodness of wood, the yellowness of yellow, the fingernailness of fingernails, the allness of all, the nothingness of all, the allness of nothing. For me music gives access to every one of these essences of existence, but at a fraction of the social or financial cost of a drug and without the need to cry ‘Wow!’ all the time, which is one of LSD’s most distressing and least endearing side-effects. - View Quote Details on LSD reveals the whatness of things, their quiddity, their essence…
Beyond question, the north Norfolk coastline is the place where I feel happiest in the world: from Dersingham to Blakeney is just superb. It’s the beaches, the tide, the skies, the birds and the fishermen, the people who live and work there. It’s in danger of becoming Notting Hill-by-the-sea, it’s so desirable. - View Quote Details on Beyond question, the north Norfolk coastline is the place where…
How can one not be fond of something that the Daily Mail despises? - View Quote Details on How can one not be fond of something that the…
Oh, I love TV. I’ve got cable with all the bells and whistles. Sunday nights are perfect for sinking into a Foyle’s War or a Midsomer Murders. - View Quote Details on Oh, I love TV. I’ve got cable with all the…
We’ve all got 3 minutes to live! What would you do? I know what I’d do- I’d have a peanut butter sandwich! (Stephen Fry in American) - View Quote Details on We’ve all got 3 minutes to live! What would you…
I don’t need you to remind me of my age, I have a bladder to do that for me. - View Quote Details on I don’t need you to remind me of my age,…
I know that my early life was at one and the same time so common as to be unremarkable, and so strange as to be the stuff of fiction. I know of course that this is how all human lives are, but that it is only given to a few of us to luxuriate in the bath of self-revelation, self-curiosity, apology, revenge, bafflement, vanity and egoism that goes under the name Autobiography. You have seen me at my washpot scrubbing at the grime of years: to wallow in a washpot may not be the same thing as to be purified and cleansed, but I have come away from this very draining, highly bewildering and passionately intense few months feeling slightly less dirty. Less dirty about the first twenty years of my life, at least. The second twenty, now that is another story. - View Quote Details on I know that my early life was at one and…