It may be that there is an afterlife and I'll look incredibly stupid, but at least I will have had a crammed pre afterlife, a crammed life, so to me the most important thing is you know as Kipling put it. [...] To fill every unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run.

Stephen Fry

Categorized in : Running Stupid Distance

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.

Stephen Fry

sympathy inspirational friendship

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.

Stephen Fry

doe writing thinking

You are who you are when nobody's watching.

Stephen Fry

who-you-are self people

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.

Stephen Fry

failing care people

I don't need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.

Stephen Fry

i-dont-need-you witty funny

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane.

Stephen Fry

royal sacred london

People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t

Stephen Fry

people

Stop wanting wealth and fame and start wanting instead to do something well about which you are passionate

Stephen Fry

wealth passionate fame

[My best tip for overcoming depression is] to regard it as being like the weather. It's not your responsibility that it's raining, but it is real when it rains, and the fact that it's raining does not mean that the rain is never going to stop. The only thing to do is to believe that, one day, it won't be raining and accept it so you can find a mental umbrella to shield yourself from the worst. The sun will eventually come up.

Stephen Fry

real rain believe

Alternative medicine people call themselves "holistic" and say it's the "whole" approach. Well, if it's the whole approach, let it be the mind as well. Use logic, use sense, use the incredible five wits you were given by creation.

Stephen Fry

medicine mind people

You can't just say there is a God because well, the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children. You have to account for the fact that almost all animals in the wild live under stress with not enough to eat and will die violent and bloody deaths. There is not any way that you can just choose the nice bits and say that means there is a God and ignore the true fact of what nature is.

Stephen Fry

nice beautiful children

A cousin of mine who was a casualty surgeon in Manhattan tells me that he and his colleagues had a one-word nickname for bikers: Donors. Rather chilling.

Stephen Fry

funny-life cousin humorous

Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the word's full octave.

Stephen Fry

tone eight comedy

My secret is that I have never thought there is a secret to anything in life. Passion. Love. Drive. Work. Work. Work. Dull but true.

Stephen Fry

passion secret dull

All the big words -virtue, justice, truth, ...- are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness

Stephen Fry

greatness kindness justice

Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books

Stephen Fry

wine teacher book

Stupid people like to delude themselves that while they may not be clever, they were at least able to compensate with feelings and insights denied to the intellectual....It was precisely this kind of false belief that made stupid people so stupid. The truth was the clever people had infinitely more resources from which to make the leaps of connection that the world called intuition. What was 'intelligence' after all, but the ability to read into things?

Stephen Fry

stupid clever people

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

useless-things wine art

Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.

Stephen Fry

humorous inspirational funny

Homosexuals are not interested in making other people homosexuals. Homophobes are interested in making other people homophobes.

Stephen Fry

homophobes homosexual people