Stephen Fry Live: More Fool Me Quotes
Stephen Fry: I don't think even the Prince of Wales could name his 8 great grandparents. And if he couldn't, coming from the most famous family in the world, then which of us can? And that's only 3 generations back, and it goes up quickly: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. - 20 generations back and you're in the millions. And if you can't name your 8 great grandparents - 1 whom may be Jewish, 1 of whom may be Arabic, 1 of whom may be of any race that you can think of under the sun; that may not have shown through as a pigmentation or a facial type - then how can you call yourself anything in terms of identity? Other than a brother or sister of everybody else on the planet. We call ourselves by the last name of only 1 of our great grandparents - leaving 7 other ancestors unnamed. You don't have to go very far back in history before all of us are related. We are all descended, if we have a hint of caucasian blood, from Charlemagne. We have more ancestors from the 15th century, than the entire population of Britain in the 15th century. And if you go back further, we're all related to Genghis Khan. And of course, we're all related to that very few thousands of people who survived the last ice age. None of us would be alive if it weren't for each and every one of them. We must be related.
Movie: Stephen Fry Live: More Fool Me