May 2013
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March 2013
5 posts
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“On one hand we want the world to be perfect but we don’t want to pay more tax....”
– [x]
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February 2013
15 posts
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“Everyone I know, whom I deeply respect and like and think is honest, would never...”
– [x]
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“I have always disbelieved that Sicilian saying about revenge being a dish best...”
– Moab Is My Washpot
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“When people get angry with a traffic warden they don’t stop and think what...”
– [x]
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“I hope you forgive the unedifying sight of my struggle to express some of the...”
– The Fry Chronicles
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January 2013
17 posts
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“Early in the year I had called Hugh up excitedly. ‘I’ve just bought a Macintosh....”
– The Fry Chronicles
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“When I was about 17 … going around London on two stolen credit cards, it...”
– [x]
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“When I was a teenager, fully aware that I was gay, I was reading - the only...”
– [x]
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“Toy Story 3 is a perfect example of 3D done properly. The story’s so good you...”
– [x]
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Q: What piece of advice would you give to Stephen Fry, aged 10.
A: You're not alone. Everything you feel is fine. Only feel guilty about things you have done that are mean and cheap and unkind. Don't feel guilty about what you feel, no matter what the world might think.
Everyone is scared inside, not just you. That's why reading is so good. Keep doing it. Writers are people brave enough to make you feel better about being human because they're not afraid to reveal their own frailties, weaknesses, desires, failures, and appetites.
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Q: What cliche do you most abhor?
A: "We're all singing from the same hymn-sheet on this one." I mean, what? I was delighted to hear a Kiwi, just the other day, come up with a much more likeable way of expressing the same idea. "We're all surfing the same wave ..." so Antipodean. I should imagine in Wellington the phrase would be, "We're all riding up the same mountain ..." Wellingtonians seem to think riding bicycles up steep hills is fun. It isn't. It's lung-bursting agony and you must stop it at once.
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December 2012
45 posts
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Amazon.co.uk: What makes a good audio book?
Fry: If the original story is no good, then forget it. No matter how good the reader, they can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. But when the story is good, it's all about suitability to the tale, the key thing is for the reader not to show off, after a while you should forget that they are there, just as you forget that the writer is there when you are reading. The characters should speak for themselves and there shouldn't be too much characterisation, enough for the different characters to be distinguishable, but not so much that it becomes all show offy. that's the ideal I think.
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Amazon.co.uk: Which of the voices in Harry Potter do you enjoy doing most?
Fry: I do enjoy the soft wisdom of Dumbledore, but Dobby the house-elf in Chamber of Secrets was good fun too. And actually, I enjoy Hermione as well. And Hagrid. And Lucius Malfoy--damn it, they're all good fun.
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“Most of all, Twitter frees me from any obligation to talk to the press. Since I...”
– [x]
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What qualities do your heroes have?
Stephen Fry: I like heroes who are generous. It always saddens me when you find a great artist who is also a son of a... because it seems naive to say so, but you always expect a hero who's capable of great art or great achievement to have the insight to know how to deal with other people properly and be generous. You read of Dickens beating his wife, you think, "how could someone who exposes the folly, vanity, wickedness and weakness of others so brilliantly, not be more generous and behave better? How bizarre. If he was a character in his own book he would hate himself. How can that be? Why can Wagner be such a great artist? He produced the most perfect art of the nineteenth century, but he was a pig". It's really annoying to me, that.
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“Having said this, I admit that if you want to communicate well for the sake of...”
– [x] 