The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese. That, in erotic terms, is the Catholic church, in a nutshell.
Interpretation
This quote critiques how society views food and body image, linking it to the Catholic church's approach to desire.
Stephen Fry's quote offers a provocative commentary on society's relationship with food and body image, suggesting that obsession with food is a reflection of deeper issues related to desire and guilt. By comparing this obsession to the Catholic church, Fry implies that both are rooted in a complex interplay of control, morality, and societal expectations, highlighting the irony of how those who struggle with food are often trapped in a cycle of obsession driven by judgment and societal norms.
In practice
During a discussion on body positivity, this quote can emphasize the extremes of societal judgments on food and body image.
I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform.
To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too.
There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it's like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you're afraid of entering it. It's just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It's like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you.
As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the 90s, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it'll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth.
It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that'.
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.
A lot of jobs don't allow you to be who you are. There is dignity in work only when it is work freely accepted.
No one β¦ can entirely step out of his time, that despite his keenness of vision his thinking is in many ways bound to be influenced by the mentality of his time
Not until we dare to regard ourselves as a nation, not until we respect ourselves, can we gain the esteem of others, or rather only then will it come of its own accord
You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.
My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized.
I never wanted to be Marilyn - it just happened. Marilyn's like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.
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