Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.
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.
An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.
No adolescent ever wants to be understood, which is why they complain about being misunderstood all the time.
I am a lover of truth, a worshiper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t
There are times when I’m doing QI and I’m going, ‘Ha ha, yeah, yeah,’ and inside I’m going ‘I want to fucking die. I … want … to … fucking … die.'(Source : RHLSTP #18 – @87min32s)
Nobody seems to understand that in such matters the tact and sympathy should come from the one who is about to die, not the poor bugger who has to take the news.
…Catholic versus Protestant, essentially. It’s that kind of fight. … And it goes on to this day. Will we never learn? Who knows? Religion. Shit it.
I’m fat because I’m greedy, and if my mind is fat it’s because I’m curious.
Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books
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.
Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.
Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could ever devise”.
There is simply no limit to the tyrannical snobbery that otherwise decent people can descend into when it comes to music.
Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.
Either a municipal bog is a private place or it isn’t. If it is a private place in which to shit, how is it not a private place in which to fellate?
[his healing skills] ..lay in the ability to comfort, to comfort in the proper sense, to make strong, to fortify
I suppose this was the first time I had ever felt an urge not to be. Never an urge to die, far less an urge to put an end to myself – simply an urge not to be. This disgusting, hostile and unlovely world was not made for me, nor I for it.
I used to think it utterly normal that I suffered from “suicidal ideation” on an almost daily basis. In other words, for as long as I can remember, the thought of ending my life came to me frequently and obsessively.
We gave you a perfectly good language and you f***ed up.
Anger fed him and clothed him and he owed it much.
Read it wisely, Little One, for the power of ignorance is great.
You can’t just say there is a god because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children.
Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.
Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
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.
there is no reason why anyone should understand how it works… and of course no reason why anyone should care … unless you are curious, in which case I love you, for curiosity about the world and all its corners is a beautiful thing.
Forget ideas, Mr. Author. What kind of pen do you use?
Thos who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.
There can’t be that many individual souls. Not souls like mine. There isn’t room. There can’t be.
Seriousness is no more a guarantee of truth, insight, authenticity or probity, than humour is a guarantee of superficiality and stupidity.
I’ve always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden’s animations.
Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.
I don’t need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.
Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.
I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
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.