“Just let the words fly from your lips and your pen. Give them rhythm and depth and height and silliness. Give them filth and form and noble stupidity. Words are free and all words, light and frothy, firm and sculpted as they may be, bear the history of their passage from lip to lip over thousands of years. How they feel to us now tells us whole stories of our ancestors.”

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.