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.
Every one of us is a mystic. We may or may not realize it, we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery. We have been given the gift of life in this perplexing world to become who we ultimately are: creatures of boundless love, caring compassion, and wisdom. Existence is a summons to the eternal journey of the sage - the sage we all are, if only we could see.
Sexism is the foundation on which all tyranny is built. Every social form of hierarchy and abuse is modeled on male-over-female domination.
The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people.
Water in the boat is the ruin of the boat, but water under the boat is its support.
The river was mild and leisurely, going away from the people who ate shadows for breakfast and steam for lunch and vapors for supper.
If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.
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