“But one day he said to me:‘I’ve got it now. It’s reading isn’t it?’‘I’m sorry?’‘You read a lot, don’t you? That’s where it all comes from. Reading. Yeah, reading.’The next time I saw him he had a Herman Hesse novel in his hands. I never saw him again without a book somewhere on his person. When I heard, some years later, that he had got into Cambridge I thought to myself, I know how that happened. He decided one day to read.”

English actor, comedian, writer, and broadcaster

Sir Stephen Fry is an English actor, comedian, writer, and broadcaster. He is known for a long career in British television, from early sketch and sitcom work to presenting panel shows and appearing in drama series. He was knighted in 2025 for services to mental health awareness, the environment, and charity. Fry first came to notice on Alfresco and Blackadder, then as part of the comedy partnership with Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. He later appeared in Kingdom, Bones, and The Dropout, and hosted QI from 2003 to 2016, a role that brought six BAFTA TV Award nominations.